Red vs Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles Part 2
by BentleyGirl
Summary: The second part of my novelization of the first five series. Please read first part to understand this part.Also please read and review. UPDATED! Rated T for swearing
1. Everything Old is New Again

**Hello again, readers. We now continue with Part 2 of my novelization of Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles.**

**As usual, I don't own this series or Halo; they belong to their respective owners.**

**Also here's a quick guide for this part and the next three parts: If the speech is in bold, then O'Malley's taken over and you're allowed to boo and hiss. Also all Spanish speech will include translations in brackets.**

**With that done, let's continue.**

* * *

Chapter 1: Everything Old is New Again

Many light-years from the planet Earth, on a distant and as yet unnamed world, at the edge of a canyon known only as Blood Gulch, a Spartan-II super soldier in bright purple armor stood on a ledge and surveyed the scene. After a while, he turned on the com-link in his helmet and attempted to make contact with his Command.

"Come in, Blue Command, come in," he said. No response came so he tried again. "This is Medical Officer DuFresne. I have reached Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha, do you read?"

At last a reply came but static disrupted the voice. "Ye… de… Hel… ou rea… lo… eck on… che… wo…"

"Say again, Blue Command," DuFresne broadcasted. "I do not read."

"Che… o… Is th… on? He... ell..."

DuFresne tapped the side of his helmet to clear the static while keeping an eye out for trouble. "Blue Command, please boost your transmission to match communication protocol, Echo, Bravo-"

"Yo, I hear you, calm down, dude, what's goin' on?" the voice responded in a much clearer signal. "Hello, yo, can you hear me, hello?"

"Uh, roger that, Command," DuFresne replied, cringing at the jazzy music issuing through his speakers.

"Sorry 'bout that," the voice apologized. "I was in the elevator; this thing doesn't work so well in there. _What's going on dude?_"

"Roger tha-" A confused look crossed the medical officer's face when he heard Command call him dude. "Uh, is this Blue Command?"

At his console, Vic, the radio operator at Blue Command gave a little smile. "Oh yeah, man, sure, totally! What's going on?"

"You're sure?" DuFresne asked. "The Blue Command base?"

"Hey dude, _take it easy_. You called me, I didn't call you."

"Naw, I know, it's just…"

"It's just _what_, **_dude?_**"

"Never mind," the purple Spartan sighed. "I'm just letting you know that I've reached Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha. I'm gonna make contact with the Blue Squad members."

"Blood Gulch, huh? Alright, let me look here, let me see what it says…" At his console, Vic clicked on the _Squad Stations _options on the computer and scanned the list. "Blood Gulch, bleu bleaou bee ehl, bluoea here we go, Blood Gulch." He clicked on the selection and a map appeared on the screen, showing the two bases on either side of the canyon and the names of the squad members currently stationed there. "Okay, says here you wanna make contact with Private Tucker, ask him about their wounded, dude."

DuFresne nodded at this, remembering his earlier orders. "Roger that, any other orders?"

"Anything else, yeah okay," Vic replied, glancing at the rest of the info on his screen. "Yeah, it says here whatever you do don't- Oh." He stopped when he saw the words Classified on the top of the paragraph he was reading. "Okay never mind dude. I'm not supposed to read you that part, okay, just uh… you'll be okay, just uh be very careful, that's all."

"Great," DuFresne mumbled unsurely.

"Alright then," Vic replied. "Well it's our goal here at Blue Command to provide excellent customer service, and I hope I have done that today. Uh, if you have any further questions about this radio transmission, you can just um, you know call back; say 'Dude, I've got some questions, what's goin' on'. Over and out." And the radio went silent.

DuFresne nodded to himself. "Okay… Private Tucker…" And he began the long difficult climb down into the gulch.

Several feet below, at the Blue base, Private Church, the self-appointed leader of Blue Squad, was keeping a lookout for attacking Reds… and fighting an inner battle. Three months had passed since he had possessed the body of Lopez, the repair droid for the Reds, and he was enjoying having a body once again but every time his attention wandered, he could feel the robot's AI struggling to regain control. Holding it back had taken every ounce of concentration, and his teammates weren't helping matters at all.

At that moment, Privates Tucker and Caboose approached their leader. "Hey Church, we have a problem," Tucker called out.

Church sighed and turned to the teal soldier. "I am not your mother, so don't come tattling to me every time one of you does something that the other one doesn't like."

"I'm telling you, he's crazy," Tucker continued, nodding to the blue soldier behind him. "He keeps threatening me and talking in a scary voice."

"No I didn't," Caboose argued.

"Oh," Tucker scowled, folding his arms. "So you're saying you _didn't_ threaten to cut off my head and give it to Church as a birthday present?"

"You know, I think you're taking my words a little out of context," Caboose retorted.

Tucker stared at him in disbelief. "What? What context?"

Church sighed and glared at his squad members. "Listen, guys, this competition thing has got to stop, okay? I thought we'd established by now-"

"Excuse me?" a new voice said behind him.

Church turned to look at the purple Spartan behind him. "Hey pal, one second okay? I'm in the middle of something here." He turned back and continued telling his crew off. "Ah look, I thought we'd established by now, I don't like either of you, okay? So competing for my attention is not gonna do you any good."

"Excuse me?" the newcomer asked more forcefully.

Church now turned his attention on the new arrival. "Okay. Yes, hello. Who are you?"

Behind him, Caboose's eyes flashed red and he pointed his pistol at Tucker, growling, "**Don't ever be alone.**"

"He's doing that _thing_ again," Tucker whimpered at Church.

"My name's Dufresne," the purple Spartan introduced himself. "Uh, are you Private Tucker?"

"No, I'm not Private Tucker," the cobalt blue leader replied. "My name is Church. _This_ is Private Tucker." He nodded towards his teal teammate.

"Yo," Tucker said, giving DuFresne a two-fingered salute.

Church then turned to the other soldier behind him. "And our friend over there in regulation blue, that's Caboose. Or O'Malley or whatever the hell he's callin' himself."

Caboose looked rather hurt. "Why did you introduce me second?"

"Because he hates you," Tucker teased.

DuFresne returned to the matter at hand. "I received your call for a Medic."

"Medic?" Caboose asked puzzled. "That was like three months ago."

"Yeah," Tucker agreed. "What'd you do, _crawl_ all the way here?"

"I came as quickly as I could," DuFresne replied apologetically. "Where's the patient?"

"Well, she's about fifty yards behind you, and six feet straight down," Church answered, pointing over the medic's shoulder.

DuFresne turned round and saw two simple wooden crosses planted in the ground. On the one Church was pointing at was wrapped a small chain with a blue ice diamond ring hanging from it. "Oh," he murmured, turning back to Church. "I'm sorry about your loss."

"What? Oh yeah," Church replied solemnly. "Yeah, thanks man, it was tough but well, what're you gonna do?"

"We didn't like her very much," Caboose argued, adding in a whisper, "She was mean to other people."

DuFresne then remembered something and turned back to the crosses. "Who's in the other grave?"

"That's uh, that's me," Church replied, rubbing the back of his head. "I'm in that grave."

DuFresne turned back to look at the 'deceased' with a doubting look on his face. "… uh huh… Of course."

Caboose quickly explained. "See, uh, he… got killed by this uh, crazy runaway tank-"

"Or by the idiot driving it," Tucker reminded him.

"Oh yeah," Caboose agreed sheepishly before continuing, "and then he became, uh, this really mean ghost and uh, took over a Mexican robot's body, uh… Oh, and then we had to uh, oyathatsright, spray-paint him, ah, to make him blue, and now he is alive again and he is a bionic man… who is blue."

"Right," Tucker agreed with a nod. "And it took us six weeks to get his Spanish setting turned off."

"No esta completamente apagado, bendejo," Church retorted. (Not entirely turned off, moron.)

Tucker sighed, shaking his head. "I'll go get the Spanish dictionary."

DuFresne stared at each of the Blues in turn. "Wait, so no one here is hurt?"

"No, we're fine. In fact, I feel better than ever," Church replied smugly. "See, now whenever these two idiots really start to bug me, I can always just turn my ears off. Couldn't do that before."

"You said they were shorting out," Caboose said accusingly.

"I'm sorry, what was that, Caboose?" Church asked. "I can't _hear_ you!"

DuFresne shrugged and took a small medical device from his belt. "Well, let me just check you two out, and I'll be on my way."

"Whoa… check us out?" Tucker asked nervously. "Is this gonna be one of those things where I have to turn my head and cough?"

"No, I'm just gonna check your vitals," the purple medic reassured.

"I bet I have better vitals than you," Caboose jeered at Tucker then he turned to Church. "What's a vital?"

"On your way?" Church cried out. "I don't think so, bud. Aren't you here to join our squad?"

"No," DuFresne replied. "I'm just here to help out with Tex and then assist in the canyon as needed."

"First of all, great job on the Tex thing, mission accomplished," Church said sarcastically. "Secondly, the way that we need you to assist is to help us kill all the Reds."

But DuFresne shook his head. "Well, even if my orders didn't prohibit me from doing that, I still wouldn't. I joined the army as a conscientious objector."

"A conshe-who?" Tucker asked baffled.

DuFresne sighed in irritation. "I'm a pacifist."

"You're a thing that babies suck on?" Caboose said in disgust.

"No dude, that's a pedophile," Tucker explained.

Now it was Church's turn to look disgusted. "Tucker, I think he means a _pacifier_."

"Oh yeah, right," Tucker admitted, rubbing his arm in embarrassment. "Man I was totally thinking about something else…"

Church rolled his eyes and slapped his teammate's helmet. "That's real classy, Tucker."

DuFresne did a quick scan on Tucker first then Caboose and checked the readings before nodding in satisfaction. "Well everyone here checks out," he told the Blues. "I'll come back and check on you before I leave the canyon. Can you tell me which way to the Red Base?"

"Why?" Tucker asked. "You said you weren't gonna fight 'em."

"I'm not," DuFresne confirmed. "Resources are low, so I'm on loan to both armies to help whichever side needs me at the time."

"Man, that is so freaking lame," Church muttered angrily.

"I'm just gonna go to Red Base and see if they need any help," DuFresne said, nodding to the other side of the canyon.

"Well, if you're gonna go up to Red Base, I'd recommend putting away that little medical thingie of yours," Church advised the medic. "They see you walking up carrying that thing, they're gonna shoot it right out of your hand."

Right on cue, there was a loud bang and DuFresne felt his scanner get ripped out of his hand. "Yeah, just like that," Church said, surprised at his prediction.

Just then, another sniper round whizzed past his head and hit the wall behind him.

"Scatter!" Tucker yelled. At once, the Blues and DuFresne ran for cover as bullets started flying all around them.

On a small hill in the middle of the canyon, the Reds were launching their attack, firing their weapons of choice. Sarge fired his shotgun at Church and turned to Donut. "Nice shot, cupcake."

"Thanks, Sarge!" the pink private called back, firing his sniper again and just missing Tucker's head.

Nearby, Simmons fired his machine gun at Caboose, making the Blue skid to a halt and run away from his team to hide behind a rock. "Oh that's right," he crowed. "Suck it, Blue!"

Grif then jumped up in front of his teammate, waving his own machine gun in the air. "Yeah-ha, sneak attack!"

"Sit down, you dumbass," Simmons yelled, pushing Grif aside. "I can't see."

Sarge cocked his shotgun and turned to his team with a grin. "Hike up your knickers, fellas. Let's go get 'em!"

* * *

**Oh dear, this part has only just started and already the Blues are in trouble.**


	2. Motion to Adjourn

**Episode 30! We now return to the second battle of Blood Gulch.**

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Chapter 2: Motion to Adjourn

Taken by surprise by the Reds' sneak attack, Church, Tucker and DuFresne had taken shelter behind a rock but Caboose had run the other direction and was stuck behind a smaller rock on the other side.

Church reviewed the situation and took immediate control. "Okay Tucker, I need you to get up there, help Caboose shore up the defense, establish a suppressing fire and hold that position until further notice."

Tucker just stared blankly back. "I didn't even know what half of that meant."

Church sighed. "Just go over to Caboose's rock and fire your gun a bunch."

"_That_ rock?" Tucker asked, looking at Caboose hiding behind his rock and the many bullets being fired between him and the others. "Yeah, I don't think so."

"We do not have time to discuss this," Church groaned.

"Sure, no time for _you_ to discuss it," Tucker argued. "You get to hang out here with Nancy No-Bullets shootin' the breeze. Meanwhile, I'm out there running around, eating a machine gun sandwich."

"Tucker, we're going to give you covering fire," Church retorted, holding up his rifle.

"Covering fire?" Tucker scoffed. "Unless that means you're gonna build a huge bulletproof wall between me and them, I think you need to come up with a new plan, preferably one that involves me keeping the same quantity of blood that I have right now."

"No problem," Church sighed reluctantly then he had a thought. "Oh, wait, wait, does the blood have to be _in_ your body?"

Meanwhile, the Reds just kept firing their guns at the Blue Base. Sarge was whittling the Blues' cover with the shotgun, Donut was taking potshots at their heads with his sniper and Simmons and Grif were shooting their machine guns in every other direction.

"Simmmonns, I-I can'tt ffeeeel my haandds," Grif cried out shakily as he fired.

"Maybe you should lay off the trigger, you dumbass," Simmons sighed.

Meanwhile, Church turned to DuFresne. "Alright you, Doc, get over there and help Caboose!"

DuFresne started at those words. "My name isn't Doc, it's DuFresne."

"Yeah, I can't pronounce that," Church replied. "So from now on, your name is Doc."

But DuFresne still didn't look happy. "I'm not really comfortable with that; I'm not a doctor, I'm a medic."

"What's the difference?" Tucker asked.

"Well, a doctor cures people," DuFresne explained. "A medic just makes them more comfortable… while they die."

Tucker cringed slightly. "Mental note: Don't ever get shot."

"It's settled then," Church decided. "Your name is now Doc."

The medic let out a sigh. "Alright, but I don't think it'll stick."

**(A.N: Please let it be known that from this moment on, Dufresne will now be known as Doc.)**

"Oh, trust us, it'll stick," Tucker reassured.

"Now get over to Caboose and help him hold that position," Church ordered.

"I don't have a gun," the newly-named Doc reminded him. "I am a _pacifist_!"

"Well then just get over there and yell 'bang, bang, bang'," Church said.

But Doc shrugged uncomfortably. "Eh, I don't know. Even that sounds pretty aggressive."

"Oh come on!" Tucker groaned.

"Besides," the medic added, "I'm not supposed to get involved unless someone gets hurt."

"Huh, I see," Church replied thoughtfully then he pulled out his pistol, pointed it deliberately in Caboose's direction and fired a shot.

"OWWWW! My foot!" Caboose yelped.

"Well, looks like Caboose has hurt himself," Church said innocently as he holstered his pistol. "Maybe you should get over there and help him, Doc."

The medic sighed and ran over to Caboose, but not before giving Church a spiteful glare. "You know, you could have just asked nicely."

Meanwhile, Simmons' gunshots suddenly turned into loud clicks. "Ah crap, I'm out." He turned and held out a hand to his teammate. "Give me some ammunition, Grif."

"Me? I don't have any extra," Grif said, holding up his machine gun. "I'm down to one bullet."

Simmons stared at Grif dumbfounded. "Wha-How can that be? You're the one who carries all the extra rounds in to battle."

Grif looked confused. "Wait, since when?"

"Since the last staff meeting."

"We actually talk about stuff in those things? I just fall asleep inside my helmet."

Simmons sighed and slapped his hand over his visor. "Well, you missed your job assignment, and now we have no ammo."

"What's _your_ job?"

"Me? I'm the Social Chairman."

Just then, Sarge, CEO of the team, ran up to them and called out, "Grif, me and Treasurer Donut are empty. We need some clips."

At that, Simmons gave an evil smile. "Hey Grif, you remember that one bullet you have left? I thought of the perfect way you can use it."

Since the Reds stopped firing, Doc was able to safely get over to the other rock. "I'm here, Caboose, where're you hit?"

"AH, ow, ow, ow," Caboose whimpered, kneeling on the ground. "My foot, my foot!"

"The left foot?" Doc asked.

"Ah, left," Caboose said thoughtfully then he lifted one hand and started making gestures. "Let's see, that makes an L with this thumb and…"

"I'm just gonna assume it's the bleeding one," Doc interrupted quickly.

"Yeah, the red one." Caboose winced in pain. "Ah, I can't believe Church shot me."

"Oh don't even _start_, Caboose!" Church yelled from his rock.

Doc just shook his head and knelt beside the injured Blue. "Anything else?"

"Uh, well what?" Caboose asked puzzled.

"You have a bullet wound in the foot," Doc explained. "Is anything else wrong?"

"Uh…" Caboose thought for a moment. "Oh, I got one. Uh, well, sometimes when I fall asleep at night, I think about my parents having sex and I get really, really mad for some reason."

Doc stared silently at Caboose for a moment. "Okay, I'm just gonna start with the foot."

"Okay," Caboose replied.

As Doc carefully removed Caboose's boot to assess the damage, on the other side, Tucker took a cautious peek around the rock, listening to the sudden silence. "Hey dude, why aren't the Reds firing?"

"I don't know," Church replied with a shrug. "Maybe they're outta ammo."

At that moment, Sarge called out to them, "Hey Blues! We are giving you a chance to surrender!"

Church whirled round at this. "Surrender!?"

* * *

**That's quite a turn for the books.**


	3. Red vs Bleu

**Now Episode 31 gives us an unusual negotiation.**

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Chapter 3: Red vs. Bleu

In the middle of the canyon, just outside the Blue Base, Sarge called out to their enemy, "We are giving you a chance to surrender!"

Hidden behind some bushes with Donut and Simmons, Grif shook his head in doubt. "There is no way this bluff's gonna work."

"Put a cork in it, Fast Eddie," Sarge snapped. "There's positively no way they know we're outta ammo."

From behind their rock, Church nodded to Tucker reassuringly. "Yeah, they're definitely outta ammo." He stepped out of cover and yelled, "What are your terms?"

"Their what?" Tucker asked in confusion.

"Our what?" Grif asked equally puzzled.

"I can't believe this is actually working," Simmons chuckled. "See if we can get Lopez back, Sarge."

"Oh yeah," Grif agreed. "'Cause then _he_ can fix the Warthog."

"Oh, oh, Sarge," Donut chipped in. "Tell them we want the flag."

"Yeah," Grif nodded. "And some cake."

"Ohhhh," Donut murmured blissfully. "Wait, wait, Sarge, just the cake."

Sarge nodded and turned back to Church. "Alright Blues! First off: we want your flag-"

"Wait, wait, wait just a second," Simmons interrupted worryingly. "The last time we got the flag, the chick in the black armor showed up."

Sarge shuddered at the memory and hastily added, "…To stay right where it is. Keep the flag. But we _do_ want our mechanized droid guy back."

"Uh oh," Church gulped.

"You may know him as Senor El Roboto," Sarge described, unaware that Church was currently occupying his creation.

"Well, Church," Tucker asked, "what's it gonna be?"

"Chingado, no way," Church retorted, grabbing himself protectively. "I'm not giving back my body, I just got this thing."

He then heard Sarge call out, "And don't think you can keep his nuts, or bolts or any other mechanical parts you may have."

Church thought quickly. "Uh, uh, he's not here anymore."

"Yeah, he left," Tucker agreed. "He was all like 'Sayonara!' and then he just took off."

"That's not Spanish, you idiot, that's French." Church then spotted Doc approaching, one arm around Caboose as he helped the Blue walk over to the others and an idea came to mind. "Let's try this. Hey Reds! How about a medic? Would you take a medic as a hostage?"

"A hostage?" Doc asked confused, overhearing Church's deal. "But I'm supposed to go over there."

By the bushes, Simmons gave a shrug. "Mmmm yeah, that sounds pretty good to me."

"I don't know," Grif said thoughtfully. "I think we could hold out for more."

"We don't have any bullets, dumbass," Simmons reminded him angrily.

"Oh right," Grif muttered sheepishly. "Take the medic, the medic's a good deal."

Behind the rock, Church turned to the medic as he and Caboose arrived. "Hey Doc, how's the patient?"

"Doing well," Doc replied. "He seems very alert and responsive."

"He's talking about Caboose, right?" Tucker asked, scratching his head in confusion.

"No I mean his toe," Church corrected himself. "How's the toe I shot?"

"What that thing?" Doc exclaimed. "That fell off like half an hour ago."

"Rest in peace, pinkie toe," Caboose whimpered sadly then finished with a growl, "**You shall be avenged!**"

"Tell you what, go ahead and send me over," Doc sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "I really don't think I can be any more help."

Church nodded in agreement and returned to the negotiations. "Okay! We're gonna send over our medic. Now what do _we_ get?"

"You?!" Simmons yelled out. "You're surrendering! You don't get anything except humiliation and ridicule!"

"We've already got that," Tucker shouted back. "What else do you have?"

"What do you want?" Sarge asked.

Church thought for a moment then had a brainwave. "How about if you admit that the Red Team sucks?"

Sarge and Simmons whispered to each other for a few seconds then Sarge called out, "What if we admit that one of us sucks?"

"Nice," Grif cheered then he realized the others were looking at him. "Wait, you mean Donut, right?"

The negotiations took another two hours to get clear but at last the two teams were ready to trade: Doc for Grif's dignity.

"Okay then, we agree to the terms?" Church called out. "You first, and then we send over the medic."

"Get on with it, Grif," Sarge ordered.

Grif let out a groaning sigh then he spoke through gritted teeth. "I would just like to let everyone know that I suck!"

"And?" Church prompted.

"And that I'm a girl…"

"What else?"

"And I like ribbons on my hair," Grif continued with a glare at his team. "And I want to kiss all the boys."

Sarge gave a loud sniff. "This may be the best surrender of all time."

"Okay, is that good enough?" Simmons called to the Blues.

"Yeah!" Church replied loudly then he turned to the medic. "Alright, go ahead, Doc."

With a nod, the purple Spartan ran over to the middle of the canyon where the Reds were waiting.

"Man, I really hope you're worth this," Grif muttered as they set off back to their Base.

"Can I ask you a question?" Doc inquired. "Do they put something in the water here?"

"Water?" Grif asked puzzled. "We ran outta water six months ago."

"No water? Then what do you drink?"

"Uh, you know, ketchup, uh, soy sauce, gravy… the usual."

"I only drink the blood of my enemies," Sarge added. "And occasionally a strawberry yoo-hoo, or a 'sasparilla. Grenadine, straight from the can. Deeelicious. …Oh occasionally I do enjoy a 'Sex on the Beach', or a pina colada." He then sang the rest of the way back. "If you like pina colada, huh, getting caught in the rain, hmm, and you're not in to yoga, hoo, Grif just has half a brain!"

* * *

**If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape, with the Reds out of ammo, the Blues had to escape… I laughed at that one.**


	4. The Joy of Toggling

**Episode 32 and things are calming down now… but for how long?**

* * *

Chapter 4: The Joy of Toggling

Now that he'd made to the Red Base, Doc was able to surreptitiously scan each of the Reds. Simmons and Grif each had perfect results and Donut had some mild scarring from the grenade injury but was otherwise perfectly healthy. Interestingly, Sarge's results showed a bullet wound in his head that should have killed him. So, while the others were busy fixing the Warthog as best they could, Grif explained to Doc how Sarge was still walking despite his severe injury.

"So, he was shot in the head," Doc pondered aloud, "and you gave him CPR for a bullet wound in the head."

"Exactly," Grif confirmed.

Doc thought for a moment then nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think that's a perfectly acceptable treatment."

"That's what _I_ said," Grif agreed.

"Oh yeah, people often overlook alternative methods of care," Doc explained. "Like, that Blue guy who was shot in the foot during the battle? All I did was rub his neck with some aloe vera, he was fine."

"Yeah, I don't know about all that," Grif admitted with a shrug. "I'm just glad that Sarge is wrong."

At that moment, Sarge called out to him, "Grif, yer supposed to be watching the prisoner, not playing lookie-loo with him all day long!"

"Come on, Sarge," Grif protested. "He doesn't even have a gun."

"Oh, you two will be great friends then," Simmons yelled. "He doesn't have a gun, and you didn't bring any ammo!"

"Hey, thanks, kiss-ass," Grif countered. "If I wanna take guarding tips from the guy who lost our last prisoner, I'll be sure to ask you!"

"Oh man, that is a burn," Donut crowed. "Dude, you just got burned. Burned, dude, burned."

"Oh shut up, your armor is pink," Simmons snapped.

Doc then cut in. "Uh, hey guys? I, I just want everybody to know that Grif and I aren't, uh, technically friends, uh, we're just talking. That's it."

He then turned to look at Grif. "Sorry man, but it's pretty obvious that you're really unpopular, and if I'm gonna make any progress around here at all, I can't really be directly associated with you. I'm sure you understand."

Grif bowed his head sadly. "It's only because no one likes you," Doc added.

The orange Spartan looked at Doc with big puppy-dog eyes which made the medic uncomfortable. "Stop staring at me."

Over at the Blue Base, while Caboose rested his foot inside, Church and Tucker were patrolling the outer perimeter. After a while, Tucker stopped and lowered Church off his back to rest his aching muscles. "Hey Church," he muttered as he stretched. "If your body is the Red Team's old droid, and droids usually fix stuff, can't you just activate your repair sequence and fix Sheila?"

"Huh…" Church replied, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Well, yeah it's worth a shot, I guess. Alright, stand back." As Tucker obeyed, the leader strained his mechanical muscles and grunted loudly, trying to find the sequence.

"Anything?" Tucker asked after a minute.

"Yeah, it's not as easy as you'd think it would be," Church panted.

"Maybe there's a button on you somewhere," Tucker suggested.

"See what you can find," Church told him. "I'll keep trying from in here."

Tucker started searching his leader's borrowed body for any controls while Church grunted and strained again. "Oh, hey!"

"Found it?" Tucker asked, peeking over Church's shoulder.

"Nah, no wait," Church groaned. "All I found was the time and temperature function. It is currently twenty-six degrees, by the way."

"What?" Tucker cried out. "It's not twenty-six degrees out here, that's freezing."

"_Celsius_, Tucker," Church replied through gritted teeth.

"Oh come on dude, Celsius sucks." Tucker continued his search for the controls, but finding nothing on Church's front or back, he knelt down to look on his legs. That's when he spotted something right between Church's legs. "Hey, I found something."

"Oh yeah?" Church asked hopefully. "You found a button?"

"Naw dude," Tucker replied, shuffing to the front for a better look. "It's more like a… switch."

"Well, give it a flip," Church told him.

Tucker jumped back to his feet nervously. "I don't wanna flip it."

"What's the problem?" Church asked confused.

"It's in a weird place," Tucker replied, pointing down.

Church followed his teal teammate's finger down to his crotch and realized what he meant. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me."

"You flip it," Tucker said.

"These arms aren't that flexible," Church replied, lowering his hands to show they only just reached below the waist. "I can't even reach down there."

"What about Caboose?" Tucker asked.

Church groaned at that suggestion. "Man, he's so stupid; I don't even know if he knows how to operate a switch."

"Oh man," Tucker sighed.

"Tucker, come on," Church reassured. "We'll laugh about it later. I'll buy you dinner."

Reluctantly, Tucker knelt down, touched the switch with his finger and tried to flip it. "It won't move; it's stuck."

"Did you try wiggling it?" Church asked.

Tucker pulled his hand back in alarm. "No way, I'm not wiggling your dongle."

"Oh stop being a baby," Church scolded. "Just wiggle it."

With a sigh, Tucker reached his hand out again and tried to pull the switch. He tried with one finger then two then three and then Church decided to tease him. "So… you from around here, baby?"

Tucker got to his feet again and glared at him. "Okay look, if you want me to do this, you can't talk like that!"

"Alright, alright, alright," Church replied, raising his hands to show he meant no harm. "I'm sorry, I'm just kidding; I'm just kidding."

Tucker sighed as he knelt down again. "I wish Tex was here, she wouldn't have any problem flipping it."

"You obviously did not know Tex that well," Church retorted.

Taking a deep breath, Tucker thrust his hand in, gripped the switch and tugged as hard as he dared until finally it clicked into place. "There!" he cheered, getting to his feet again. "Anything?"

"Nope, nothing," Church replied, just as a strange _boop-beep, boop-beep_ noise started up in his ear. "That's kinda weird. Do you hear something beeping?"

Back at the Red Base, Sarge, Simmons and Donut had managed to get the Warthog working again so now Sarge moved on to other matters. "Are there any ideas on what to do with the prisoner?"

Simmons looked over to where Grif was sulkily watching Doc. "Well, we have to get him away from Grif because… yeeahh, you know, it's kinda cruel and unusual to have to talk to him."

"How 'bout we, um, let him trade armor with, uh, one of us?" Donut asked pointedly, rubbing the back of his neck. "That would show him."

Behind them, the jeep's headlights started flashing in time to the beeping in its circuits then a mechanical voice spoke up. "_Warthog online. Homing beacon activated._"

Donut whirled round in alarm. "Sarge, d-did the car just talk?"

Simmons stared in fear and Sarge gulped. "Uh-oh…"

* * *

**And trouble's starting again.**


	5. Sweet Ride

**On to Episode 24 and trouble is starting its engine.**

* * *

Chapter 5: Sweet Ride

As the Warthog revved the engine by itself, Sarge explained to the others that some time before Lopez ran off, he had installed a special modification.

"Okay, I get it," Simmons said, nodding in understanding. "So you built a remote control for the jeep into Lopez."

"Yep," Sarge confirmed. "But there's _no way_ anyone could have found out how to turn it on. I hid it in a place _no one _would _ever_ _look_. Unless…" He turned to Donut suspiciously. "Hey, Pretty in Pink, were you messin' with my robot?"

"What're you asking _me_ for?" Donut replied.

Grif, who had left Doc alone to talk to his team, glanced nervously at the Warthog. "So someone else controls the jeep right now? And the big gun attached to it?"

"Oh, get a pair, you bunch o' Barbies," Sarge snapped. "Even if they figured out how to turn it on, they'd never know the set of code words to control it. Only me and my diary know that."

Meanwhile, at the Blue Base, Church had searched all around the building looking for the source of the beeping in his head. Soon, he was standing on the roof listening to the continuous _boop-beep, boop-beep_ing as Tucker and Caboose stood nearby. "There, you hear that?"

"Is it like a screaming, high-pitched whistling noise, followed by a series of random clicks?" Tucker asked curiously.

"No, it's just like this constant 'beep-beep-beep' noise," Church replied.

"Oh…" Tucker looked deflated. "Then, no, I don't hear anything."

Church stared at his teammate worryingly. "Wait, do you actually hear a series of whistling noises followed by some random clicks?"

"No," Tucker admitted. "I was just tryin' to be helpful."

"Yeah, well, you're failing," Church scowled, folding his arms.

Caboose looked over his shoulder. "All I hear is that voice, you know, telling us to kill all our friends before they have a chance to kill us." He looked back to see Church and Tucker staring at him curiously. "Wait, you guys don't hear that?"

"Oh man, I can't take this anymore," Church yelled, placing his hands on the sides of his helmet. "Tucker, you're gonna have to do something, man. This beeping is going to drive me crazy!"

Church didn't know it, but those last words "Drive me crazy" were the code words to control the Warthog. At that moment at the Red Base, the jeep received those instructions. "_Drive._"

"Jumping Jehosephat," Sarge cried out. "They've cracked the code! Those dern windtalkers."

Just then, with a rev of the engines, the Warthog drove straight towards them. The Reds narrowly jumped out of the way but Doc was taken unaware. The jeep smashed into him, sending the medic flying up before he landed upside down into the driver's seat.

"Hey, he's taking the jeep!" Donut cried out.

As the Warthog drove into the canyon, Doc struggled to get upright, kicking his legs out and shouting, "HELP! This jeep is kidnapping me!"

"Now he's _taunting_ us," Donut moaned. "This is just embarrassing."

Simmons nodded and turned to his CO. "Hey Sarge, new rule: How 'bout we just don't take any more prisoners, since we seem to suck at it."

Back at Blue Base, unaware of the approaching jeep, Tucker had instructed Caboose to locate the switch on Church's crotch. It took a while, but the dopey Blue finally spotted it. "I see a switch down here," he whispered. "It's not very big."

"Oh yeah, that's it," Tucker said. "Just flip it."

But Church looked worried. "Wait, stop."

"_Stop,_" the Warthog said, screeching to a halt and jerking Doc forward so he hit his groin on the steering wheel. "Ow."

Church glanced down at his teammate. "Caboose… do you know how to work a switch?"

Caboose looked up nervously. "Uhhhhhhh…"

"Alright," Church sighed. "Here's a full tutorial then. The switch is pointed in _one_ direction; just turn it around, so that it's pointed in the _other_ direction."

Behind him, the Warthog did a complete u-turn. "_Turn around._"

Caboose meanwhile grabbed the switch and tried to twist it but it snapped off in his hand. "Oops, it broke itself," he winced and Church groaned angrily.

In the canyon, Doc managed to pull himself the right way up in the driver's seat only to find the Warthog was now facing the Red Base. "Oh man, what now?"

The Reds stared at the jeep in worry. "That does not look good," Grif murmured as he and Donut started backing away. "Nice kitty, nice kitty…"

Meanwhile, Tucker had knelt down to look at the broken switch that Caboose was still holding. "Okay, I see two wires down here. One's green, the other one's red."

"What about the blue one?" Caboose asked, pointing it out.

"That's your thumb, idiot," Tucker replied impatiently.

"Come on, guys," Church called out. "Just grab whichever one goes to the switch, and yank it out."

"I can't tell which one goes over there," Tucker said unsurely.

"Then just yank 'em both," Church yelled.

Caboose stood up and stared at his leader nervously. "Church, if we pick the wrong one… you could explode."

"I don't care," Church growled impatiently. "Look, just follow the red one."

Outside the Red Base, the Warthog received its next orders. "_Acquire target: Red._"

Grif gulped loudly as he, Donut and Simmons ran off. "Uh, Sarge, y-you may wanna start running… NOW."

Sarge looked round in time to see the Warthog bearing down on him. "Ahhhhhhh, fudge pumps!"

At that moment, Tucker was following the two wires with each hand. "Okay, I see what's going on here. The red one goes close to the switch, and the green one goes…" He pulled a face. "Eugh, someplace else."

"Fine, just pull it," Church yelled. "Take out the red one."

By then, the Warthog had caught up to Sarge and slammed him into the side of the Base. "Oh, I'm pinned!" Sarge yelped.

Then the next orders came to the Warthog. "_Eliminate red target._"

Doc gasped in horror as the machinegun behind his head turned to one side and started firing at the wall, drawing closer to Sarge's head.

"You're gonna kill him!" Grif cried out.

Sarge managed to pull one arm free, but he knew it would be too late. "What a way to go, killed by my own mechanical creations. I'm sure there's a philosophical lesson to be learned from all this."

"Something about the dangers of technology and the unwavering pride of mankind?" Simmons asked.

"No," Sarge replied. "Something about hiring better help that doesn't just stand around _watching you die!_"

* * *

**That's also a good lesson there.**


	6. Last Words

**It's Episode 25 and we continue where we left off.**

* * *

Chapter 6: Last Words

With Sarge still trapped by the Warthog, the machinegun firing closer to his head and Doc completely frozen in the driver's seat, Simmons turned to his teammates. "Okay, we gotta do something here, guys."

"You're right," Donut nodded in agreement. "I got dibs on Sarge's armor."

Meanwhile at the Blue Base, Church had his hands on the side of his head, trying to block out the beeping noise and Tucker was reaching out for the red wire. "Okay Church, you ready? I'm gonna yank the wire."

At Red Base, Sarge managed to hold the machinegun back with his free hand but he knew he couldn't hold it off for long. "Grif," he grunted, "if you see Lopez, tell him I forgive him. Tell him, he was like a son to me."

"I thought Simmons was like a son to you," Grif said puzzled.

"No offense, Simmons," Sarge told the maroon Spartan. "Lopez and I just, understood each other better."

"Understood?" Simmons cried out. "He refused to speak English!"

"Yeah," Grif agreed. "And he ran away the first chance he got."

"And now he's trying to kill you with a remote control jeep," Simmons finished.

Sarge just gave a light chuckle. "Ahhh, what a little rascal."

Back at Blue Base, Tucker grabbed hold of the red wire. "Alright, here goes nothing. One… Two… Three!" And he pulled hard on the wire until it snapped in two.

In Church's helmet, the beeping faded away and he lowered his hands with a sigh of relief. "Oh God, yes, finally! Some freaking peace and quiet! I thought that was gonna drive me nuts." He made to step forward, but found that he couldn't. "Hey, why can't I move my legs?"

At the Red Base, the turret was firing inches from Sarge's head when suddenly it stopped and the Warthog's headlights shut down. "_Signal lost…_"

"Wow, that was a close one," Grif breathed. "Are you okay, Sarge?"

"Ah, horse puckey, I'm fine," Sarge replied dismissively, pushing the gun away. "Although I do have to admit, maybe a little disappointed."

"It's okay, sir," Simmons comforted. "I know you said a lot of things that you didn't mean. People say crazy stuff when they're faced with their own mortality."

"It's not that," Sarge retorted. "I just felt like I could have taken him."

"Taken who, the machinegun?" Grif asked incredulously.

"Oh he was a worthy opponent to be sure," Sarge chuckled slyly. "But right at the end there, he was beginning to show signs of weakness, cracks in the armor, if you will."

"What?" Grif cried out. "You can't fight a machinegun!"

"Yeah, Sarge," Donut agreed. "I know you're tough and all, but it is kinda hard to beat up hundreds of armor-piercing bullets using only your face."

"And yet, he surrendered," Sarge pointed out.

"Guys, guys, it's okay," Doc called out from the driver's seat. "I've seen this before. Sarge just lived through a very traumatic ordeal. We all have ways of coping with the stress."

"Oh yeah?" Grif asked. "How do you deal with it?"

"Oh, I have my own system, that works pretty well for me." Doc then sniffed the air and glanced down at the seat. "By the way, the driver seat of the jeep is gonna need a thorough cleaning."

Back at Blue Base, Church kept trying to move in any direction but he couldn't feel his legs at all. He let out a groan of annoyance. "This is great, this is just great. Thanks a lot, Caboose. Now what am I supposed to do? My lower half is damaged."

"Why don't you try walking it off?" Caboose suggested.

"I can't use my legs, moron," Church snapped.

"Oh, I see," the gormless Blue replied. "Have you tried running?"

"This doesn't seem like that big a deal. You hardly ever used your legs before anyway." Tucker rubbed his back to soothe the ache. "I've never heard of a grown man asking for so many piggyback rides."

"Hey," Church retorted. "I already told you: _that_ was for _science_."

Caboose then spoke up again. "Why don't you just try… _walking on your hands?_ Then you can use your feet for high-fives, and eatin' sandwiches… and you know, the important stuff." He had to duck to avoid the pistol hurled at him by Church.

Meanwhile at Red Base, Simmons turned to the purple Spartan behind the wheel of the jeep. "Hey, Doc, although I'm sure Sarge enjoys having his spine pulverized into dust, maybe you should go ahead and back up the Warthog."

"Oh, right, sorry," Doc replied. He ground the gears and started to drive the jeep, but he only succeeded in smashing into Sarge.

"OH, hot buttered lugnuts!" Sarge cried out.

Doc winced at his mistake. "Ooh geez, I'm really sorry. I-I just was in the wrong gear, let me just…" He flicked the gearstick back and tried again, ramming into the Red leader again.

"Yeow, geez, there goes mah last kidney!" Sarge yelped in pain. "I was saving that one for a special _occasion._"

Doc looked at the other Reds. "Third time's the charm?"

"I don't think so, Poindexter," Simmons snapped, pointing his rifle at the medic. "Outta the jeep, NOW!"

"I'm really sorry, guys," Doc stammered apologetically. "I was only trying to help… really!"

"Oh is that all?" Grif asked sarcastically. "I for one was totally confused. I thought you were savagely trying to kill our Sergeant by ramming him over and over with a six thousand pound steel death machine. Now that we know that you're just trying to help, by all means, please continue."

Doc stared silently for a moment. "Really?"

"GET OUT!" Grif and Simmons yelled.

Back at Blue Base, Tucker had knelt down again, pulled off the codpiece of Church's armor and was rummaging at the many wires and components inside, but he was unsure which would fix his leader.

"Well, just start reattaching wires," Church ordered. "I'll tell you when I feel something."

Tucker took hold of a loose wire and plugged it into an empty socket. "What about that, did you feel that, Church?"

"No, what're you doing?" Church asked, glancing down at his teammate. "I don't feel anything."

Caboose meanwhile was still making stupid suggestions. "Oh Church? You know, I was thinking… Uh, y-y-ya know, when you, when you eat ice cream too fast sometimes and it hurts your brain?"

"Hey Caboose, yeah, shut up," Church replied angrily.

Then, just over Church's shoulder, Caboose spotted three figures climbing over the hill in front of their base. "Uh… Church? I think that you should know that the Reds are-"

"Dammit, Caboose!" Church snapped, finally losing his patience. "In the short time I've known you, you've managed to call my girlfriend a slut, blow me up with a tank, shoot me in the head and now paralyze me from the waist down! So I hope it's not too much for me to ask, _just for once, if you'd __**shut your freaking mouth!**_"

Just then, Simmons called up to them from behind. "Hey Blues, we're here to- What the hell are you guys doing?"

* * *

**Those of you who know what Simmons is thinking they're doing, please keep your traps shut.**


	7. Nobody Likes You

**Here's Episode 26 and… I can't think of anything to put here, so please enjoy this dollar sign: $**

* * *

Chapter 7: Nobody Likes You

Outside the Blue Base, Simmons stared at the sight of Tucker kneeling in front of Church's crotch and jumped to the wrong conclusion. "What the hell are you guys doing?"

Tucker looked round, spotted the Reds and Doc below and quickly jumped to his feet. "Oh, crap, the Reds are here."

"What? Caboose, why didn't you say anything?" Church tried to turn round but he could only glance over his shoulder. "Hey, one of you guys turn me around, I still can't move my legs."

"What were you doing down there?" Grif asked Tucker.

"Nothing," the teal soldier replied innocently. "What're you talking about?"

"We were just playing a game!" Caboose called out from the back.

"Hey Caboose, we'll handle this," Church ordered.

"What in the hell is going on at this Base?" Grif asked confused.

"I told you these guys are weird," Doc hissed behind his hand.

"Whaddaya want, Reds?" Church yelled over his shoulder. "Get outta here or we'll start shooting at ya!"

"Oh yeah?" Grif challenged. "You care to make that threat to my face?"

Church turned one way then the other, but he still couldn't look completely round and sighed in defeat. "No…"

"Yeah, I didn't think so, punk," Grif chuckled.

Tucker raised his pistol to shoot at Grif, but Simmons quickly jumped in. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down, guys. We didn't come here to fight; we just came to give back the prisoner."

"Give him back?" Tucker cried out incredulously. "You can't give him back, you took him; a deal's a deal."

"Yeah, well forget it," Grif retorted. "We don't want him."

"Well, sorry," Church shouted back. "You can't have another prisoner. That was our last one."

"Hey dude, what is your problem?" Grif yelled, folding his arms.

"Yeah," Simmons agreed. "Didn't your mama ever tell you it's impolite not to look at someone when you're talking to them?"

"He's shy!" Caboose called out.

"Shut up," Church snapped at him before glancing back at the Reds. "Look, we don't want him back and we don't care what you do with him. Now if you don't mind, we'd appreciate it if you'd leave us alone. We're in the middle of something… kinda private over here."

"That's sad," Grif muttered, shaking his head. "He _is_ shy."

"Fine!" Simmons yelled as he, Grif and Doc set off back up the hill. "But don't come asking for him back later."

"We won't!" Tucker promised.

At the top of the hill, Grif turned round and called out, "Last chance!"

"Beat it, Reds!" Church snapped.

"Alright, we're going, we're going." Grif ran down the other side of the hill and met up with Simmons. "Man, I thought our team was obnoxious, but those guys are _really rude._"

Doc then started back the way they'd come, but Simmons quickly stepped in front of him. "Whoa, whoa, hey, whoa, where do you think you're going?"

"Back to Base with you guys," Doc replied. "They don't want me over there."

He made to step past Simmons, but Grif grabbed his arm and held him back. "Yeah, I don't think so."

"What?" Doc cried out in surprise, pulling his arm free. "You're not just gonna leave me out here in the middle of nowhere… by myself?"

"Yeah," Simmons nodded. "That's kinda the general idea."

Simmons set off back to Base and Grif followed, making Doc panic. "Not you too, right Grif? Old buddy? Huh?"

Grif turned and folded his arms. "Sorry, it's pretty clear that you're not very popular around here, and if I'm gonna make any progress at all, I can't be directly associated with you. I'm sure you understand."

Doc realized that Grif had used his own words against him and he bowed his head sadly as the Reds set off back to their Base.

Back at the Blue Base, Church kept trying to look over his shoulder. "What's going on? Are they there? Did they leave? Hey somebody tell me what's happening!"

"I don't know, I can't really see too clearly," Tucker admitted, staring out into the gulch with a hand shading his visor. "I bet I could see better if I had that sniper rifle."

Church then looked forwards and tapped his teammate's shoulder. "Uh, Tucker, you might wanna look behind you."

Tucker whirled round to see that Caboose had the sniper rifle and was now looking through the scope. "Oh, motherfucker!"

"Uh ooh, Church, Church. Okay I s-I see something…" Caboose watched through the scope as Simmons and Grif left for their Base and Doc hung around dejectedly. "Okay, uh, the two red ones are walking away… uh, but the purple one is…" His eyes flashed red as he finished in a scary voice, "**I think he's going to attack!**"

"Purple?" Church then gasped. "Oh wait, the purple guy's that worthless medic."

"He's not gonna attack," Tucker reassured Caboose. "He's a pussy-fest."

"_Pacifist!_" Church corrected.

"Ah, whatever," Tucker shrugged dismissively. "Let's tie him up and roll him through the teleporter."

"Wait a second, wait a second," Church then cried. "Think about this for a minute: Why would the Reds leave him out there by himself? This has to be some kind of trick."

Caboose narrowed his now normal eyes as he watched Doc through the scope. "I'll bet they used some kind of… _brainwashing technique_ on him! They-They're probably planning to have him do all their dirty plans… and also the schemes."

Tucker folded his arms and shook his head. "Caboose, that is ridiculous."

Caboose turned the scope towards Tucker and glared at him suspiciously. "Is it? Or is it so ridiculous, it's the most ridiculously perfect idea that you never thought of?"

"No, just the regular kinda ridiculous," Tucker replied simply.

"Well, just keep your eye on him," Church decided. "We'll know it's a trick if he tries to get into our Base."

"Hey guys!" Doc called out just then. "Uh, do you think I could come and hang out at your Base for a while?"

"I knew it," Caboose whimpered. "We're all gonna die…" He aimed the sniper at Tucker's head, growling, "**Starting with you!**"

Tucker stepped away from Caboose and shouted, "Sorry, but we're kinda busy here. So go away… or something."

"Normally I wouldn't impose," Doc called back. "It's just that I don't know the neighborhood too well and-"

"Listen, Doc!" Church interrupted over his shoulder. "You're not fooling anyone with that 'innocent victim' routine."

"Hey uh, I could help!" Doc offered. "I know more than just medicine! I'm trained in psychology too. Maybe I could help you with your problem facing people!"

"Just get outta here!" Church yelled irritably. "And tell your buddies the Reds that their little 'plan' failed."

Doc turned away sadly. "Well, this is just great," he murmured as he set off towards the cliff face. "I can't be_lieve_ I failed outta medical school for _this_!"

* * *

**For added effect, start playing "Creep" by Radiohead at this point. So, it's goodbye to Doc… for now.**


	8. Nine Tenths of the Law

**It's Episode 27 and things are getting back to its normal pace… if you can call things that happen at Blood Gulch normal.**

* * *

Chapter 8: Nine-Tenths of the Law

At the Red Base, Donut had managed to free Sarge from the Warthog and they were now standing outside the building, waiting for Grif and Simmons to come back.

"So, just you and me, hanging out at the Base today, huh Sarge? This is new," Donut said conversationally. He glanced down at Sarge's weapon. "I notice you use a shotgun. That's cool. I just use this pistol; it works for me."

Sarge didn't reply so Donut turned round and whistled to himself for a bit before turning back. "So, you think the guys will be back soon? What do you think they're up to? You think they stopped at the store? I noticed we were getting pretty low on Elbow Grease."

Sarge still remained silent but Donut didn't seem put off. "When you die, can I have your armor?"

At that moment, Grif and Simmons arrived. "Hey, we're back!" Simmons called out.

"Oh man, am I glad to see you guys," Donut said relieved. "Sarge would _not_ stop talkin'. Seriously_._"

Sarge glared at Donut before turning to the others. "Grif, Simmons, were you able to work out a suitable exchange?"

"Uh, not exactly, sir," Simmons admitted, rubbing the back of his head. "You see, when we showed up, the Blues were doing something _really weird_ and then they-"

"_Really_ weird," Grif agreed. "And they were _rude_."

"Hey, dumbass," Simmons snapped. "I thought we agreed I was gonna tell the story."

"Excuse me," Grif replied unapologetically. "Go ahead."

Simmons sighed and turned back to Sarge. "Well, you see, the Blue guys were really weird and not just normal weird, _really_ weird-"

"You're not telling it right," Grif interrupted again.

"Okay _fine_, how do _you _remember it?"

"Well, I remember agreeing that you're a kiss-ass. I get fuzzy on the rest of the details."

"Anyway," Simmons concluded, "they didn't want the prisoner back, sir."

"Why, those cunning Blue devils," Sarge scowled. "Does their treachery know no bounds?"

"It wasn't a total loss, sir," Grif said, holding up a leather pouch with the words "Property of Medical Officer DuFresne" sewn on it. "I was able to steal his wallet."

Sarge smiled at him. "Grif, I may just make a respectable soldier out of you yet."

"Really, sir?" Grif asked hopefully.

"Hell, no!" Sarge yelled. "Now leave the money on my nightstand and get back to work!"

On the roof of the Blue Base, Church was now fed up of not being able to move. "Alright, Tucker, what the hell are we gonna do, man? I gotta get my legs working here."

"I don't know, but I can't just keep pulling wires down there," Tucker admitted with an uncomfortable shrug. "I think we should call in a professional, maybe someone who can fix Sheila too."

"Okay, great idea," Church agreed. "But the only two people who can do that are Senor El Roboto and Tex."

"Hmmm, Tex _can_ be kinda hard to work with," Caboose murmured.

"Yeah," Tucker agreed. "Dead people usually are."

Church glared at his teal teammate, his arms akimbo. "Quite frankly Tucker, I find your attitude offensive."

"What about that Lopez person?" Caboose asked thoughtfully. "Is _he_ available?"

"No, I'm in his body, remember?" Church reminded him, pointing at himself.

"Well," Caboose continued, rubbing his chin. "Why don't you just leave his body, and then Tucker and I will make him fix you and my girlfriend!"

"Girlfriend, what?" Tucker cried out.

"You retard!" Church yelled.

"I mean, uh, Tucker and I will make him fix you, and uh, the beautiful tank lady who means nothing to me," Caboose hastily corrected. "Then we can get you back in his body when he is done."

"I'm confused," Tucker muttered, scratching the top of his helmet. "That actually seems like a good idea."

"I know," Church agreed.

"But… _Caboose_ said it."

"I know."

Without warning, Tucker raised his fist and punched Church right in the visor. "OWW!" the leader yelped, grabbing his face. "What the hell was that for?"

"I don't know," Tucker replied. "I thought maybe I was dreaming, so I punched you in the face to make sure I wasn't."

Church glared at his fellow Spartan. "Tucker, when you think you're dreaming, you don't _punch_ somebody _else_; you get somebody _else_ to pinch _you._"

Tucker folded his arms crossly. "Dude, it doesn't matter what kinda dream I'm having; I am not going to ask you to pinch me."

Church winced in pain slightly. "If you dented my forehead, Tucker, I am gonna be _pissed_."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Tucker waved him off dismissively.

"Let's try this," Church decided. "I'll jump out of Lopez's body real quick, you two just watch him and make sure he doesn't try anything, got it?"

"Yeah sure," Tucker replied.

"Okay, Church," Caboose added.

"Alright, here goes nothing…" And with that, Church stepped out of Lopez's body, making the robot cry out, "Hegakergerk!"

As Lopez stood still, Tucker turned to his blue teammate. "You know, I have to hand it to you, Caboose, you finally came up with a good idea."

"Oh thanks, man," Caboose replied. "It was nothing."

Behind them, Lopez looked around in confusion before he realized where he was, so he quickly ran through his self-repair sequence to fix his legs and then jumped off the roof.

"No, no," Tucker complimented. "You really contributed and that's what it's all about."

Caboose just shrugged happily. "Ya know, I just enjoy the process."

Then Church appeared between them, stretching his ghostly arms and legs. "Oh yeahah, back in the spirit world, alright. Man I forgot how good this feels, kinda… loosey-goosey." Then he noticed something wrong. "Hey, what'd you guys do with my body?"

"Why do you care about your body?" Tucker asked. "You can't even move yer-" He then turned round in time to see Lopez disappearing over the hill. "Oh hey look, your legs work."

"**This one is mine!**" Caboose's eyes flashed red as he grabbed the sniper rifle and started firing at the retreating robot.

"Hey Caboose, whoa, cut it out man, you're gonna damage my body!" Church quickly shot his hand into Caboose's arm and forced him to drop the sniper. "Tucker, you guys go through the teleporter and cut him off. I'll meet you guys out there." And he faded away.

Tucker turned to look at the teleporter and shuddered. "There's no way I'm going through the teleporter again," he told Caboose. "I've still got this tingle in the back of my… look, dude, I'm just not going back through the teleporter, okay?"

Caboose looked worried. "But Church said for us to-"

"Yeah, but Church didn't think of _this!_" Tucker pulled a plasma grenade off his belt, flung it through the teleporter and then set off into the canyon. "Come on, let's go!"

In the middle of the canyon, Lopez glanced over his shoulder, hoping he'd escaped his captors, but when he turned round, he spotted Church's spirit standing in his way. "Alright, hold it right there, amigo."

Just then, a smoking black orb appeared out of nowhere and rolled between Church's feet. "¿Mira que cosa mas fina?" Lopez cried out and ran back the other way.

"Hey," Church called out. "I said hold it, not run away, you big… robot baby!" He then heard a hissing noise and looked down to see the ball. "What the hell? That rock looks just like a grenade… oh, crap."

KABOOOOMMMM! The grenade's explosion was heard from the Red Base and Grif grabbed the sniper and climbed onto the roof to get a better look.

"What in Sam Hell is goin' on out there, Grif?" Sarge bellowed as he and the others ran up the ramp to the roof.

"Sir, I think we're under attack," Grif reported, "a very sloppy, poorly coordinated attack."

"How many do ya see?" Sarge asked.

Grif looked through the scope and surveyed the scene. "There's two running our way, and another one seems to be- _retreating?!_"

"Oh, we'll give them all a reason to retreat," Sarge growled, grabbing his shotgun. "Saddle up, Simmons, let's go rope us some Blue steer!"

"Woohoo!" Simmons snatched up an assault rifle and followed his CO down the ramp towards the Warthog, cheering and whooping all the way.

With Sarge and Simmons gone, Donut ran up and stood next to Grif. "So… just you 'n' me, hanging out at the base. That's cool."

"Shut up, rookie!" Grif snapped.

But Donut didn't hear him. "You think they'll be gone long? Me and Sarge had a great time together."

"Oh my God," Grif groaned.

And while everything else happened, the conversation between Donut and Grif went on like this:

"We talked about all kind of stuff…"

"I'm not gonna be listening to this all day long…"

"He showed me a picture of his mother; we talked about home decorating…"

"Are you ever going to shut up?"

"We made macramé ideas…"

"Jesus Christ…"

"We shared recipes for soufflés…"

"How did I get stuck in this place…?"

"Oh man, it was such a blast! And then we talked about our feelings…"

"Ugh, God…"

"And then we also discussed what it was like to be the loner at high school…"

"You've gotta be kidding me…"

"And you know, all the kids made fun of us, but we had a really good time…"

"Oh man…"

"I mean, Sarge is a really neat person…"

"I don't wanna listen to this…"

"We talked about his dream the other night where he dreamed that uh… some shit happened…"

"Why me?"

* * *

**And so on, and so on, and so on. Poor Grif.**


	9. In Stereo Where Available

**Once again, action is on the way in Episode 28.**

* * *

Chapter 9: In Stereo Where Available

Behind the Red Base, Sarge leapt into the driver's seat of the Warthog while Simmons took his place behind the machinegun. "Alright, hit it!" the maroon Spartan called.

With a nod, Sarge started the engine and drove the jeep into the canyon, past the wrecked Sheila and towards the plume of smoke.

In the middle of the gulch, Church emerged from the smoke coughing and spluttering. "What the hell?" he gasped out. "Who tried to blow me up with a grenade? And why am I coughing? I don't have lungs."

Just then, the Warthog ramped over a nearby hill with the two Reds cheering. "Yeeehaaa!" "Ride 'em, cowboy!"

With a yelp, Church disappeared into thin air, but not before Simmons spotted him. "Hey Sarge, hold on a second!"

Sarge slowed the vehicle down and Simmons jumped out of his position to look round. "Did you see something weird, Sarge?"

"Yes I did," Sarge replied grimly. "Once when I was a small child, I saw someone who _claimed_ to be my uncle, do this thing with a garden hose that still haunts me to this-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Simmons interrupted quickly. "I meant did you see something weird _just now_, like five seconds ago."

"Oh. Then, no."

"What was all that stuff about your uncle?"

"I keep telling everyone he wasn't my uncle! He wasn't!"

"You wanna talk about it?"

Sarge frowned at him. "Just get back in the damn jeep."

Meanwhile, Lopez had escaped from Church and was silently praising his luck when he looked round and screeched to a halt, as the other Blues pointed their weapons at him.

"Hold it right there, hombre!" Tucker threatened, keeping his pistol trained on the robot as he smiled at Caboose. "I told you throwing that grenade through the teleporter would work. Church is gonna be so impressed."

Caboose nodded in agreement. "And Sheila will love me again, and this time, for who I am, not just for my stunning good looks… but for those too."

Lopez shook his head in disbelief. "Pinche mamónes azules. Es tán tan estúpido que como miran." (Damn these Blue bastards. They really are as stupid as they look.)

Caboose's eyes flashed red as he pointed the sniper at Lopez. "**Your soul is a cavern of lies!**"

Tucker glanced between Caboose and Lopez and he scratched his head in confusion. "What the hell are you two talking about?"

Lopez scowled at the two Blues. "A es ganado esta tiempo, pero su reinado repugnante va se de breve duración. Los Rojos vana ser vengado-" (You may have won this round, but your cruel reign of tyranny will be short-lived. The Red people will be avenged-)

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, nobody cares," Tucker interrupted dismissively. "We need you to fix our tank."

"Nunca vo es trabajar para la enemigo," Lopez shouted angrily. "Pueda un malo estar sobre su alma y su casa." (Never will I work for the enemy! May a pox be upon your soul and your house.)

On the inside of his visor, Lopez could see the primary objectives Sarge had programmed in his memory banks: 1) Fix everything 2) Hate the orange one 3) Call Mom more often. But he never let them get in the way of his glorious speech. "Un mucho tiempo mi raza sufridos, pero muy pronto vamos a ser un día nuevo." (Long have my people suffered, but very soon we will see the coming of a new day.)

Tucker and Caboose looked at each other in puzzlement as Lopez continued, "La amanecer de nuestro tiempo está cerca, y cuando la noche acontece su gente la trabajadores de la campo va sabrán que está tiempo. Es la tiempo des nosotros…" (The dawn of our time is near, and when the darkness befalls your people, the workers of the field will know that this is their moment. It is our time…)

"Man, I thought Church talked too much," Tucker muttered, turning to Caboose. "You think if I kick him in the switch, he'll shut up?"

Caboose however was staring at something behind Lopez. "Uh, Tucker? I think that maybe we should begin the going of the running now… the _fast _running."

Tucker followed his teammate's gaze until he spotted the Warthog revving on the top of the hill, with Simmons pointing the machinegun straight at them! "Oh crap!"

In the driver's seat, Sarge called to his favorite private. "Hold yer fire there, Simmons. This is payback time!"

"Go for it, sir!" Simmons replied loyally.

Below, Tucker started to slowly back away from Lopez. "That's right, we're just casually strolling away. No cause for concern…"

"RUNNING TIME!" Caboose screamed and set off towards the Base at top speed.

"Nice and casual, moron!" Tucker yelled, running after his teammate.

Behind them, Lopez let out a mocking laugh. "Sí, sí, corren perros cobardes. Sea sabido que la gran Lopez ha ganado en esta día…" (Yes, yes, run away, you cowardly dogs. Be it known that the great Lopez has won this day and…)

Just then, Sarge put his foot down and the Warthog zoomed towards the Blue Base. "Aim for that guy right in the middle, Sarge!" Simmons called out, pointing at the cobalt-colored Lopez.

"Way aheada ya, Simmons," Sarge replied.

Hearing the shouts, Lopez turned around and gasped in horror. "¿Qué está pasando?" (What is happening?)

"We got ya now, you Blue bastard!" Simmons yelled.

With a heavy, mechanical heart, Lopez turned his head away and closed his eyes. "No me ha dado otro opción." (You have given me no choice.) Focusing his energy, he used his auto-control to override the systems for the Warthog and activated its self-destruct sequence.

From behind the machinegun, Simmons looked down at the jeep. "Hey Sarge, do you hear a strange beeping sound?"

Seconds later, KABOOOOOOMMMMMM! The Warthog exploded with the force of a rocket, sending it flipping backwards toward the Red Base. Simmons and Sarge were flung out of their seats while Grif and Donut jumped aside to safety, seconds before the jeep slammed into the side of the building.

Tucker and Caboose watched the scene in amazement and rejoined Lopez as he bowed his head sadly. "Perdóneme, padre." (I'm sorry, father.)

"Alright!" Tucker cheered, punching the robot on the arm, and nearly breaking his knuckles. "Not bad, robot dude!"

"I knew he would save us. I knew it!" Caboose squealed with joy. "Robot people always like me. It's because of my awesome dancing."

But Lopez wasn't sharing the Blues' elation. "Mi espíritu está quebrado. Mis gente a abandonado me y ahora todo está perdido." (My spirit is broken. My people have betrayed me and now all is lost.) An oily tear trickled down his metal cheek as he turned to face his captors. "Haga con mí que quieres." (Do with me what you will.)

"Yeah, okay man," Tucker replied. "Can you just shut up and fix our tank?"

As they set off back to Base, Caboose let out a cry of "Dancing time!" and began to shimmy and shake his booty.

"La corazón de esta guerrero uera en dolor," Lopez moaned then he glared at Caboose's dancing. "¿Por qué esta torpe esté bailando absurdo?" (The heart of this warrior cries out in sorrow. Why does this one mock me with his foolish dancing?)

Caboose then started jerking his limbs around wonkily, making Lopez angry. "¿Son esos movimientos supuesto hacer lo ver como un robótica? No. Soy ofendido por esto." (Are those moves supposed to make him look like a robot? They do not. I am offended by this.)

Caboose then finished with a quick moonwalk before spinning on the spot and striking a pose. "Dancing time!"

* * *

**Since the last part wasn't actually shown, I just made it up as I went. Also, just to clear things up, I am not, repeat NOT, doing the special episode that comes after this. You might have liked it, but it's too weird for me, so don't complain about it. Apart from that, it's not strictly in canon with the rest of the season**


	10. Radar Love

**I've been driving all night, my hand's wet on the wheel. There's a voice in my head that drives my- Oh sorry, the title of Episode 29 made me think of Golden Earring.**

* * *

Chapter 10: Radar Love

At the Red Base, the three privates watched from the roof as Sarge struggled to get the damaged Warthog fixed.

"Is it just me, or does this jeep seem like really bad luck?" Grif asked his fellow soldiers.

"Yeah," Simmons agreed, rubbing his bruised bottom. "You know, now that you mention it, it does seem like every time we get in the damn thing, it breaks, or explodes, or goes crazy and tries to kill one of us."

"Maybe we should try exchanging it for a few motorcycles," Donut suggested. "No, wait, wait, wait, a big tank like the Blues have. That thing never seems to have any problems at all."

Meanwhile, the Blues had convinced Lopez to help push the damaged Sheila back to their Base and now Church was working out an agreement with their new mechanical teammate.

"Alright, that's the deal, mister robot," Church finished. "You fix our tank, we'll let you go free."

Caboose turned to Tucker and hissed behind his hand, "I thought the plan was to trick him into fixing the tank and then Church will take over his body again when he is done."

"Yeah," Tucker explained. "But you don't tell the person you're tricking what's going on, Caboose."

The dim Blue looked shocked. "So, if I'm the one being tricked, then you would not tell me what is really going on?!"

"Why would we trick _you_?" Tucker asked puzzled.

Caboose leered at him. "Oh I think you know."

Lopez meanwhile was still feeling very despondent over the Reds' betrayal. "¿Dónde yo iré? Mis amigos quieren matar me." (Where will I go? Even my friends have tried to kill me.)

Church just nodded. "Okay, I'm gonna take that as a yes, and let you get busy with tank fixing."

"No tengo hogar," Lopez sighed then he picked up his tools and set to work. (I have no home.)

Back at Red Base, Simmons and Donut joined Sarge by the upturned jeep while Grif grabbed the sniper rifle and looked towards the Blues. As he watched their activities, he suddenly spotted the cobalt-colored Lopez climbing into Sheila's cabin. "Oh crap," he muttered then he called down, "Hey, uh, they got a guy fixing their tank."

"Impossible!" Sarge yelled. "Our intelligence _clearly_ states…"

"We have intelligence?" Donut interrupted.

"-that the only soldiers in this canyon with mechanical training are that dead Freelancer and Lopez." Sarge suddenly gasped. "Oh, wait a minute!"

"Sarge, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Simmons cried out. "Lopez runs away, the jeep starts driving itself, and suddenly there's a new guy on the Blue team?"

"Yes, Simmons, I am," Sarge replied grimly. "Quite obviously, the Blue team has constructed some kind of _diabolical mind-control ray beam_, that they used on Lopez and now he has to do their evil Blue bidding!"

"Or," Grif argued, jumping off the roof, "since he's a robot, maybe they just _reprogrammed_ him."

"Or maybe," Donut then spoke up. "That Blue guy who got killed by the tank came back as a ghost, and now _he's_ possessing Lopez's body. That could also explain why Sarge went nuts when we had the prisoner; the Blue ghost probably possessed him too. And the jeep going nuts was probably a weird set of coincidences, while the guy learned how to use Lopez's body."

Grif, Simmons and Sarge stared at the pink private in silence.

"I think I like the ray beam idea better," Simmons then said.

"Yeah rookie," Grif chuckled. "Your idea sounds a little dumb."

Back at Blue Base, Lopez was rewiring the controls in the tank's cabin while Caboose was jumping up and down eagerly. "Hurry, hurry, hurry, fix the tank, so that I can say hello to Sheila…" His eyes flashed red as he finished, "**And start killing everyone!**"

"You mean all the Reds, right?" Tucker asked nervously.

"Of course," Caboose replied perkily before growling, "**For starters!**"

Church tapped his ghostly foot impatiently. "Come on, how much longer, Lopez?"

"Completo," Lopez called out then he started the engine, powered it up and climbed out the seat.

"Thank you for activating the M808V Main Battle Tank," Sheila announced.

"Sheila, you're fixed!" Caboose squealed, running up and hugging the tank's tread. "You're fixed!"

"Hello, Private Caboose," Sheila said fondly. "It is good to see you again. Thank you for repairing me."

"He didn't fix you, our robot did," Tucker cut in.

Caboose glared at his teal teammate with glowing red eyes. "**Don't cock-block me!**"

"Dude, come on," Tucker sighed, rolling his eyes.

"Robot?" Sheila asked puzzled. "I wasn't aware that our squad was outfitted with a robot."

As she turned her turret round, Lopez stared in awe at this mechanical beauty before him. From somewhere, romantic harp music began to play as the two machines looked at each other.

"I don't like where this is going," Caboose murmured worryingly.

"Hello there," the tank said shyly. "My name is Sheila, the M808V Main Battle Tank."

"Y yo soy Lopez la Pesado," the robot replied with a graceful bow. (And I am Lopez the Heavy.)

"Lopez… What a nice name for such a nice soldier," Sheila said happily. "You have such excellent motor skills."

Caboose quickly jumped in at this point. "Ummmm, yes, well, Lopez has to go now. He was just here to help me fix you, and now he has to _go away!_"

"Dude, this is getting weird," Tucker muttered angrily. "Church, will you take your fucking body back?"

"Roger that," Church nodded, stepping towards Lopez.

Lopez turned round and gasped as he saw the ghostly Blue run up. "No!" But by then it was too late. "Heauegerkergerk!"

Tucker, Caboose and Sheila watched as Lopez stumbled back and grabbed his head, shaking violently.

"You okay in there, Church?" Tucker called out. "Church! Hey, what's going on? Do I need to flip your switch?"

Just then, Church reappeared, stumbling onto his side. "What the…? That wasn't me! What the hell's going on here?"

In response, Lopez stopped shaking, turned around and spoke in a familiar female voice. "Well… buenos dias, cock-bites… Guess who's back."

* * *

**Oh yeah, Tex is back and there's gonna be some trouble! Radar Love!**


	11. I Dream of Meanie

**Episode 30 and a mystery is about to be revealed.**

* * *

Chapter 11: I Dream of Meanie

Anger filling his ghostly body, Church leapt to his feet and glowered at the possessed robot. "Get out of my body right now, Tex!"

"_Your_ body?" Tex cried out, stepping back. "This isn't your body, I stole it!"

"Yeah, but I stole it first!" Church snapped back.

"I'm confused," Sheila spoke up, staring at Tex. "I thought your name was Lopez, and I thought you were a man." She rolled back and forth on her treads in the tank equivalent of scratching her head. "This is all so strange. I feel like my circuits are crossed… and I _like_ it!"

"**I know how to get her out of there!**" Caboose growled, his eyes glowing red as he took out his pistol and pointed it at Tex's helmet. "…**Wink!**"

"Caboose, don't!" Church quickly jumped between the Blue and Tex. "Look, just go explain to Sheila, okay?"

Caboose blinked, his eyes returning to normal, nodded and climbed onto Sheila. Church meanwhile turned to his ex. "Alright, Tex, now what's it gonna take to get you outta there?"

"Well, ever since I've been a ghost, I've been watching you guys a lot," Tex explained.

"Whoa," Tucker interrupted nervously. "When you say you've been watching us, does that mean you've been watching us _all the time_?" He glanced over to a nearby boulder that had the words "KEEP OUT! TUCKER'S ROCK! PRIVATE!" painted on it with teal paint. "Like, even when we're alone?"

"Yes, Tucker," Tex replied patronizingly. "And you should be _very_ ashamed of yourself."

"It's very lonely out here," Tucker murmured, looking at his feet in shame.

"Anyway, I've noticed a change in one of your guys…" Tex nodded to the blue soldier on top of Sheila. "…Caboose."

"A change? Like what?" Church asked curiously. "He's finally learned the whole alphabet?"

Tex stared at him in disbelief. "You haven't noticed that he's become increasingly aggressive lately?"

"I have!" Tucker cried out, raising his hand like a student answering the teacher's question. "It started about the same time Sheila got disabled and you got blown up. I tried to tell Church, but he never listens."

"Tucker, there's a very fine line between not listening and not caring," Church replied. "I like to think that I walk that line every day of my life."

Tex quickly explained everything. "See, I had just finished repairing the tank when I overheard Church's plan to warn the Reds about me. From what I could tell, the AI calculated the odds of survival and didn't like the results. So once Caboose turned on his radio to call Church, it took its chance…"

Tucker nodded as he recalled Caboose's sudden change in behavior during the call. "And that was when he said his name was O'Malley. So the AI that was in you infected Caboose?"

"Right," Church confirmed. "Everyone's armor has one slot for AI, and Caboose's would have been vacant."

"I think there are a few of his _non_-artificial slots that are empty too," Tucker muttered.

Tex nodded at Church's statement. "And before I could figure out what happened, that _bitch_ hit with a really lucky shot." She shuddered at the memory of her painful death. "And the next thing I know, I'm a ghost."

"Alright, I get it," Church scowled. "Caboose has your precious little AI. So let me guess: you're holding my body hostage until I help get your AI back, right?"

"Wrong," Tex disagreed. "You're gonna help me kill it!"

Meanwhile over at the Red Base, Sarge had called an urgent meeting in the flag room. Simmons had to keep an eye on Grif to make sure he didn't fall asleep again.

"Ladies," Sarge barked, marching along the line. "It has come to my attention that we are in need of a new robot-type person. Who here wants to volunteer?"

"Are we going on a trip?" Donut cried out. "I love trips! Can we play I Spy? Or the License Plate Game?"

"_Shut up_, Donut!" Grif yelled angrily.

"Or Punch-buggy? Or the alphabet game with the signs?"

"Why won't this guy shut up?"

Simmons looked very worried. "Uh, sir, what exactly do you mean by 'volunteer'?"

Sarge nodded at the private's direct question. "Quite obviously, we are without a robot or any other type of recruit with mechanical training or dexterity. Therefore, the only solution is to turn one of you into a robot and/or freaky cyborg thing."

Simmons and Grif's shouts of protest overlapped each other. "What the…?" "What?" "Have you gone crazy?" "That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard." "What the hell?"

But Donut seemed happy at this. "Cool! I vote for Simmons!"

"I'm told the cyborg operation is a relatively simple procedure, really," Sarge explained over Simmons and Grif's mutterings, "wherein the mostly useless guts and slimy goo of the human body are replaced with the no doubt superior guts and _oily_ goo of a robot. If yer lucky, you may even get a copper rectum."

"Sir, wouldn't it be better if we didn't do that instead of doing it?" Simmons suggested.

"Gooood thinkin', Simmons," Sarge replied before he shook his head. "But no, I like the removin' the guts thing, so I think we stick with that."

"Yeah sir, I _hate _to agree with the kiss-ass," Grif added, "but wouldn't it be better if we just got Command to send us another perfectly good, brand new robot instead?"

"Negative, meat sack," Sarge replied gruffly. "Another new robot could be reprogrammed by our enemies just as easily as Lopez. We need someone we know we can trust!"

Simmons suddenly realized that everyone was looking at him. "Oh fuck me…"

"Or," Sarge added, "someone whose mental capacity is so _unbelievably_ tiny, that he could never be turned against us."

Everyone turned to Donut, who quickly stepped back and pointed at his armor. "Hey, _pink suit,_ guys! I think it's somebody _else_'s turn in the barrel."

Sarge nodded and turned back to Simmons. "Then again, maybe we just stick with the trustworthy thing."

"Oh, you backstabbing ass monkeys!" Simmons yelled as Donut came round from behind and restrained him.

Sarge turned to his least favorite private and pointed to a large trunk neaby. "Now Grif, I'll be needing some things from my medicine chest for this operation… Two quarts of vodka?"

Grif opened the chest and pulled out two bottles. "Check."

"Eight pounds of Vaseline… condensed."

Grif took out several small jars. "Check."

"An old tire iron, preferably metric."

Grif looked but he couldn't find it. "Ya know, I might have left that in the bathroom."

"Latest issue of Easy Bake Oven for Kids Monthly."

Grif thought about this. "I'll have to check."

"Check, you mean we have it?"

"Check- no, not check, I mean I'll _have_ to check, we don't have it."

"Come on, boy, make sense," Sarge yelled. "I ain't got all day, I gotta gut this fish."

* * *

**Well, that'll keep the Reds distracted for a bit until the Blues work out what to do.**


	12. Room for Rent

**Here's Episode 31 and things are about to get crazy-er.**

* * *

Chapter 12: Room for Rent

At the Blue Base, Church left Caboose outside with Sheila to look for trouble while he, Tex and Tucker met in their flag room to discuss their plans to stop the rogue AI. Tex quickly gave a quick rundown of how she was enrolled into the secret military program.

"Well, Tex, that was a great story," Tucker said once she'd finished. "I especially liked the part about Church getting pants'd at high school."

"I found that part to be entirely outta context," Church sulked.

"But I still don't get how we're supposed to stop the AI," Tucker finished.

"I don't remember much from the implantation process," Tex admitted, recalling a great laboratory and being in some kind of pod while some scientists took notes. "I _do_ remember that the AI can be transmitted from host to host by way of the helmet radios. Before I learned anything else, the AI took over and we escaped. If we can kill the AI and not give it a place to jump, we'll beat it."

"And then I can have my body back, deal?" Church asked.

"Deal," Tex agreed.

"Alright," Church said, taking action. "Tex and I will possess Caboose then. Tucker, we need you to work on the Reds. Get 'em to turn off their helmet radios so that O'Malley won't have anywhere to go once we get him outta there."

"Right," Tex confirmed.

"What?" Tucker cried out. "How the hell am I gonna do that?"

"I don't know, come up with a plan," Church replied with a shrug.

"Come on," Tucker groaned. "You know how I feel about plans."

"You're not gonna have much time once we get in there, so move fast," Tex informed the teal soldier.

"Oh I see," Tucker scowled, folding his arms angrily. "You have no idea what I should do or how I should do it, but whatever I do, I should do it fast."

Church and Tex nodded at this. "Yeah, that's right." "Yep."

"Wow, you guys are a _lot_ of help," Tucker sighed.

"Try shifting your paradigm," Church suggested. "Think outside the box."

"Hey, the box is there for a reason," Tucker retorted. "I _like_ thinking inside of it. I feel safe in there."

Cautiously, Church peeked into the passageway and saw that Caboose was facing the other way outside the main door then he turned to the Freelancer. "Okay Tex, ladies first."

"Yeah, right!" Tex snapped. "You think I'm gonna leave you alone out here with your body? Nice try, _Leonard_!"

"Bitch," Church muttered under his breath as he turned back to his oblivious teammate. "Hey, Caboose!"

Hearing the shout, Caboose turned to face his leader. "Huh?"

"Heads up!" And with that, Church ran down the passage, closed his eyes and jumped into Caboose's body.

At the same time, Tex exited Lopez's body and ran up to Caboose. Seconds before she leapt in, the AI realized what was about to happen. "**NOOOOOO!**"

As the rushing feeling faded, Church opened his eyes and found himself in a strange place. He was standing on a narrow ledge overlooking a massive metal chamber, with stone barriers dotted the floor below and long metal walkways stretching out above. "Where are we?"

"We're _inside_ Caboose's _mind_," Tex replied, appearing behind him. "Now we just have to find O'Malley and kill him."

Church looked around him in confusion. "Man, this is kinda weird."

"It's hard to get used to, I know," Tex sympathized.

"No, it's not that," Church argued. "It's just that this place is a lot bigger than I thought it would be."

Out in the real world, Tucker approached Caboose and waved his hand in front of his teammate's face, getting no reaction. "Caboose, are you okay buddy?"

Caboose then looked around with a dazed look on his face. "This place is a lot bigger than I thought it _would_ be."

"Oh…kay." Tucker carefully put his arm around Caboose's shoulders and helped him walk into the base towards the sleeping quarters. "I'm gonna take Sheila and Lopez and figure out some way to get the Reds to shut off their radios."

Caboose turned his head to look at him. "Where should we start, Tex?"

"What?" Tucker asked puzzled.

Inside Caboose's mind, Church repeated his question. "I said, where should we start, Tex?"

"Just keep your eyes peeled," Tex ordered, scanning the chamber with a wary eye. "I guarantee, O'Malley will come looking for _us_."

Just then, Church spotted a teal-armored figure walking down the ramp behind Tex. "Hey Tucker, is that you?"

The figure turned round to look at them, showing a clueless look in his eyes. "No. What are you, stupid? Oh wait, yes, I _am_ me. I guess _I'm_ stupid."

"What are you doing in here?" Church shouted. "You're supposed to be out there working on your part of the plan!"

But Tucker ignored him, looking around in confusion. "Do you have any food? I love to eat all the food."

"What the hell?" Church asked. "What's the matter with you?"

"This isn't really Tucker," Tex reassured. "We're in Caboose's _head_. This is Caboose's _mental image_ of Tucker."

"Man, I am so unbelievably stupid!" Tucker cried out.

"Well, that's great," Church sighed in annoyance. "Everyone we meet in here is bound to be as brain-dead as Caboose, then."

"I would not be so sure of that, Mister Church," a intellectual voice said behind them. Church and Tex looked round to see Caboose standing by the ramp, a superior look on his face.

In the real world, at the Red Base, Sarge and Grif had begun the operation on Simmons while Donut was looking around for other parts they could use.

"Great idea, sir," Grif said, giving Sarge a piece of equipment they'd procured from their fax machine. "I finally agree with you."

Just then, Donut came running in, a concerned look on his face. "Hey, guys, we might have a problem here," he panted. "Somebody, and I'm not gonna say who, might have thought that one of the cyborg parts we needed for Simmons' surgery was a cup holder. And _some_body, not naming any names here, might have left it, along with their favorite smooth jazz compilation CD, in the Warthog." He scratched his head in thought. "I just don't know who would do such a thing."

"Was it you?" Grif asked pointedly.

"Yeah- uh- no!" Donut corrected before clearing his throat and saying in a deeper voice, "I mean, no! …Dammit!"

Sarge put down his surgical tools and turned to the two privates. "Grif, you and Easy Listening stroll on down to retrieve that part from the Warthog, _post-haste!_"

"Sir, do you think it's safe to be outside the Base right now?" Grif asked with a nervous glance outside. "For all we know, the Blues could have already fixed their tank. They could be advancing on us as we speak."

"Ah, corndogs," Sarge shouted. "Even with Lopez helpin' 'em, it'll take them _months_ to get that tank online, much less to get it movin' again."

"I hope you're right," Donut muttered nervously. "Because if I see that tank headed towards me, I'm totally gonna freak out."

At that very moment, in the middle of the canyon, Tucker drove Sheila up to the top of the hill overlooking the Red Base, closely followed by Lopez. As they surveyed the scene, Tucker shook his head slowly. "Man, I sure hope they don't totally freak out when they see us coming."

* * *

**It's action at last!**


	13. Me, Myself and You

**If you readers thought the last episode was strange, wait until you read what happens in Episode 32.**

* * *

Chapter 13: Me, Myself and You

Inside Caboose's mind, Tex and Church explained to the mental images of Caboose and Tucker who they were, where they're from and why they had come here.

"I see," Caboose said in understanding. "So you're from the outside. That's where the other is from as well."

"The other…?" Church then gasped. "Wait, you mean O'Malley? Have you seen him?"

"Of course he's seen him, you _idiot_!" From behind Caboose, a cobalt blue figure ran up, a disgruntled look on his face and a tone of contempt in his voice. "You think Mister Caboose would miss something like that, you sleazy douchebag fuck!"

Caboose was about to apologize but Church cut him off as he stared at this newcomer. "Alright, hold on a second. Who the hell are you?"

"My name is Church, butt-wiping assmunch!" the new soldier replied.

"This guy's kind of an asshole," Church whispered to Tex.

"Yeah, we've met," Tex agreed pointedly.

"And I'm Caboose's best friend," the new Church snapped. "So don't get any ideas about kissing up, you limp-licking fuck-sock!"

"Okay, there's a lot of stuff in that sentence that I didn't like," the real Church scowled.

"Just play along, Church," Tex advised. "We're gonna need these guys if we're gonna find O'Malley."

"I'm gonna go look for girls!" Tucker cried out dopily, running off along the walkway.

"Fine, whatever," the real Church sighed under his breath.

"If you want to find O'Malley, I suggest we talk to the Reds first," Caboose told them. "He tried to recruit them against me early on."

"The Reds?" Church asked. "The Reds are in here?"

In the real world, outside the Red Base, Grif and Donut were examining the upturned Warthog. Grif knelt down to look at the front seats then stood up and turned to Donut. "Well, are you _sure_ you left the part in there?"

"Hmmm, think so," Donut muttered. "Wait… Yes. No. Wait-wait-wait-wait…" He struggled long and hard to remember before giving an answer. "I _think_ so."

Grif let out a sigh. "Alright, let's retrace your steps. You said it was the Tuesday before Simmons and Sarge got blown up that you were last in the Warthog, right?"

"Right," Donut confirmed. "I know it was Tuesday because that's the day I wash my underwear. And since I don't like to let my armor touch my bare skin, on account of I chafe _really_ easy, I remember thinking 'where can I hang out with no pants on?'"

Grif pulled a horrified face. "_Oh God!_"

In the middle of the canyon, Tucker drove Sheila a bit closer to the Red Base while Lopez ran alongside. "Okay, well, looks like we're close enough," Tucker said, glancing over the control panel. "Now if I can just find the brakes on this thing… Ah, must be this button."

"Do _not_ touch that button," Sheila snapped.

"Oh, sorry," Tucker said, pulling his hand back. "Hmmm… Maybe it's _this_ one."

"Do not touch me," Sheila warned again.

"You know, for a girl your size, you're kinda sensitive," Tucker sulked.

Meanwhile, Grif was clutching his head in his hands, feeling a migraine building. "I cannot take any more of this."

But Donut was retracing his steps regardless. "So after I clipped my toenails, I was gonna apply the ointment as recommended, but I don't know- it just smelled really funny. So I decided to taste it, just to make sure it was safe."

Grif's face turned three shades of green. "That's it, I'm committing suicide," he groaned, running off.

"Hey, I didn't finish retracing my steps yet," Donut called out. "You don't even know what I did about the boil on my thigh."

As Grif ran out from behind the Warthog looking for a place to throw up, he suddenly spotted Sheila and Lopez coming towards them and all feelings of nausea faded rapidly away. "Oh, crap!" he yelped and ran back behind the jeep.

"Hey, you're back!" Donut said happily. "So where was I? Oh yeah… I _lanced_ it. Dis_gusting_!" He pulled a face and made a loud gagging noise.

"Not now, rookie!" Grif shouted, crouching behind the Warthog. "There's a giant tank out there that's about to steamroll right over us!"

"What?!" Donut grabbed the side of the jeep, pulled himself up to look around… and let out a gasp of alarm. "Oh God, it's true!" He dropped back down then he started running around in circles, yelling in hysterics. "I'm totally freaking out! _I'm freaking out!_"

Tucker meanwhile was also about to freak out as the tank drew closer. "Oh my God, I can't believe Caboose is smart enough to drive this thing and I'm not! Sheila, how the fuck do I slow you down?"

"Retard the throttle," Sheila advised.

"What throttle?" Tucker yelped. "This throttle?"

"Retard the controller."

"You mean this thing?" Tucker gulped, pointing at a large lever by his leg. "What are you talking about, I'm so confused!"

"The controller, retard!"

"Hey, that's kind of insulting!"

Then Sheila started cycling through her last word. "Retard, retard, retard, retard…"

"Oh come on," Tucker sighed. "Now you're just being mean."

* * *

_**Sheila**_**: Retard, retard, retard…**

**She's still going… Oh wait, she's stopped now.**

_**Sheila**_**: Retard.**

***sigh* Never mind.**


	14. An Audience of Dumb

**It's Episode 33 and the conclusion of this very weird happening.**

* * *

Chapter 14: An Audience of Dumb

As Sheila drew closer to the Red Base, Tucker began to press buttons on the control panel in a panic. "AHHHH, Sheila, we have to slow down or we're gonna run into that jeep!"

"Please, take evasive action," Sheila warned. "Please, take evasive action."

"_You_ take evasive action," Tucker snapped then he looked out to the robot running alongside them. "Hey, Lopez, help me out. Can't you talk to her?"

"Perdóneme," Lopez replied, shaking his head. "Pero no puedo hablar con mujeres bella. Porque sudo." (Sorry, I'm not good at talking to beautiful women. I get sweaty.)

Meanwhile, crouched behind the upturned Warthog, Donut turned to Grif in fear. "Well, old buddy, it looks like this is the end for us," he gulped. "Since we're gonna die anyway, there's only one thing left for us to do. Grif-"

"If you actually suggest what I think you're _about_ to suggest, I'll just have to kill myself!" Grif warned with his hand to his pistol.

"Let's make a break for it!" Donut finished.

Grif let out a sigh of relief. "In that case, let's go on three. That's worked well for _me_ in the past."

"Okay," Donut agreed. "You count."

"Fine," Grif replied. "But don't look at me while I count, because I get nervous." He turned the other way and started counting. "One… Two…" But when he turned back to run on three, he saw that Donut had already fled. "That son of a bitch… he beat me at my own game."

Just then, Lopez ran up and pointed his gun at Grif, but seconds later, Sheila slammed into the side of the Warthog, sending the Red and the robot flying. "Ayayay!" Lopez yelled as he crashed to the ground, but Grif got caught in the jeep's underside and was crushed as Sheila smashed it against the side of the Base, sending up a cloud of dust.

Unaware of what had happened behind him, Donut ran into the Base and down to the medical ward where Sarge was helping the newly robotized Simmons get up from the table. "Good golly Miss Molly," the Red CO cried out. "What is going on out there?"

"Sir, the Blues are attacking with their tank," Donut panted. "They-they blew up the Warthog… again."

"I wonder what jeeps ever did to _those_ guys," Simmons muttered.

"Grif and I just barely had enough time to make it outta there, right Grif?" Donut turned round but the orange Spartan wasn't behind him. "Grif? Uh… Grif?"

Meanwhile, inside Caboose's mind, Church and Tex were following the mental images of the Blues down the long walkway. Caboose and Tex led the way and Church walked alongside his angry double whom he'd mentally dubbed Leonard so as to avoid confusion between them (and for the benefit of the readers).

"Why the hell did they pair me up with _you?_" Church muttered.

"I wanted to keep my eye on you," Leonard snapped. "I don't trust gigantic turds to try to steal my best friend, you rimjob!"

"Well, this is gonna be a great trip," Church sighed.

Eventually, they reached a podium that offered the best view of the pillar-filled chamber below and Leonard ran up to the edge. "Attention, Reds," he called out. "The great Caboose demands an audience with you, so listen up, ye blowjobbing cocksuckers!"

One by one, the Reds stepped out from behind the pillars. First to emerge was Simmons, cowering with his arms over his head. "Caboose?" he whimpered in fear. "Oh no, he's come to kill us!"

Next out was Grif, wearing yellow armor and clutching his assault rifle like a child would clutch his teddy bear. "Will someone please help me, I don't wanna die!"

Then Donut stepped out, shaking in fear. "I love Caboose, and yet I'm still afraid of him," he said in a girlish voice… not a girly voice, he actually sounded like a schoolgirl.

Finally, Sarge came out, with the face like a vicious pirate and a voice to match. "Arrr… I be havin' a southern accent, yor'll."

"He's so scary," Donut whimpered.

Caboose stepped onto the podium, making the Reds cringe in fright, and raised his hands. "Fear not, Reds, I come here not to destroy, but instead to ask for your assistance on this day."

"Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," Church interrupted, his mind in a tizzy. "I gotta correct a couple things I'm hearing here." He turned his attention to Leonard. "First of all: you? You're not Caboose's best friend, okay? You don't _have_ a best friend. You know why? You don't need one! You're Church! Knowing other people just waters down the experience. Live the dream, buddy!"

"Shove it, dicksniffer!" Leonard retorted.

With a shake of his head, Church turned back to his blue teammate's double. "And Caboose… Come on, dude, seriously? Have you paid attention to our enemies for one second?"

"I beg your pardon?" Caboose asked in surprise.

"First of all: that guy?" Church pointed to Grif, making the Red flinch. "He's not yellow, he's orange." He then glared at Donut. "And since when is there a girl on the Red team?"

"My favorite thing is pretty dresses," Donut said.

"Arrr, I got termites in me leg," Sarge called out.

"And that is_ not_ a Southern accent!" Church yelled.

"Do you have any tampons?" Donut asked.

Church just stared in stunned silence. "Seriously, _what is the matter with you people?_"

"Calm down, Church," Tex tried to reassure.

Grif stepped back in terror. "Don't kill us, Mister Sidekick."

"Hey, buttbrunch," Leonard yelled out, pushing Church aside. "I'm Caboose's sidekick, not him! So shut your piehole!"

Suddenly a shot ran out, and Leonard cried out in pain as he fell to the lower level, making the Reds scatter in fear.

As Tex quickly glanced around for the shooter, Church ran up to the edge and looked down. "Leonard, are you okay?"

"Oh, please," Leonard replied grouchily, struggling to his feet. "That fudgefinger couldn't hit me…" He gasped and grabbed his bleeding chest. "No wait, I'm gonna die." He collapsed to the ground again and breathed his last. "Herk! Blow me…"

Just then, Tex pointed upwards. "There he is!"

Church looked up and spotted a black-armored Spartan standing on a distant balcony, holding a smoking sniper rifle and laughing evilly.

Tex pulled out her assault rifle and nodded to Church. "Let's go get him!"

As she ran off, Church whipped out his pistol. "Alright, c'mon, Caboose, let's go!"

But Caboose just stared at him in confusion. "I'm sorry, have we met?"

"What?" Church cried out. "It's me, Church!"

"I don't seem to have any memory of you," the blue soldier replied, holding out his hand. "My name is Michael J. Caboose. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Oh, you gotta be freaking kidding me." Church sighed as he set off after Tex. "I just hope Tucker's doing a better job out there getting the Reds to turn off their radios."

At that very moment, Tucker had just managed to pull himself out of Sheila's cabin. "God dammit. This isn't going very well at all." He looked over to see Lopez getting to his feet. "You okay, Lopez?"

"No pueden tocar Lopez la Pesado," the robot replied, dusting off his armor. (Lopez the Heavy is impervious to injury.)

"Whatever, you big showoff," Tucker sighed before he glanced down at the dusty tank. "How about you, Sheila, you still online?"

"Affirmative," the tank replied.

"Okay, we should be close enough to hack into their radio frequency," Tucker said, climbing onto the roof of the Base. "Lopez, get inside Sheila and do your business."

"What?" Sheila asked.

"¡Esto me haciendo muy suderoso!" Lopez yelled. (I'm getting very sweaty!)

"Oh my God," Tucker sighed. "Remind me to hose you two off when we get back to Base."

Inside the medical ward, Sarge turned to his remaining privates in concern. "Well, this is a devil of a peccadillo. Simmons, get on the squawk box and tell Command that-"

Suddenly, the radios in their helmets activated and a voice called out to them. "Red guys, are you there?"

"What in buttery goodness?" Sarge cried out, switching on his com-link. "Who is this!?"

"It's me, Tucker, I'm one of the Blue guys," the voice replied. "Look, I don't have time to explain, but I need all of you guys to shut off your radios right now."

Sarge scowled at this. "Boy, it'll be a cooooold day in hell before I take orders from _you._"

"Look, it's really important, alright?" Tucker urged. "Normally I would just shoot at you guys and steal your girlfriends, but today is different! I need you to trust me on this."

"Well, I may have spoke too soon," Sarge replied, with a wink to Simmons and Donut. "That is an interesting and well thought out, not to mention clever and _timely_ I might add, proposition. Simmons, would you care to deliver our rebuttal?"

Simmons nodded, cleared his throat very deliberately and turned on his radio. "SUCK IT, BLUE!"

"Yeah, suck it, Blue!" Donut agreed, switching his radio on. "Now that's what I call an _old school_ zinger. In your face, Blue dude, in your _face!_"

As the Reds continued to cheer, Tucker let out a sigh. "Aw man…"

Meanwhile, Tex made it onto the balcony where O'Malley was standing but the AI jumped off onto a lower walkway and ran off, still laughing. "Hurry up, Church," she called out. "He's getting away!"

"**You'll never catch me!**" O'Malley yelled.

Church ran up to Tex. "Come on, let's go!" And they jumped onto the walkway and set off in pursuit.

At the same time, Tucker turned to look at the two machines. "Dammit, these guys are not backing down. Lopez, looks like we're gonna have to go to Plan B."

"Sí, yo entiendo," Lopez replied, climbing out of Sheila's cabin.

**(Start the music!)**

At once, some tacky love music began to blare out of Sheila's speakers as Lopez tuned his radios to the Reds' frequency and started to sing:

La primera vez que vi sus pisadas

Y sus puerto del acero

Supe que había encontrado alguien

Para compartir un verdadero

(The first time that I saw your treads

And enormous chassis of steel

I knew that I had found someone

To share a robot love so real)

Inside the Base, Sarge flinched at the song issuing through his helmet. "What in Betty's bloomers is on the radio now? It sounds like the feral cry of a retarded Mexican sasquatch!"

"Turn it off, turn it off!" Simmons screamed, placing his hands on the side of his helmet. "Please God, make it stop!"

But Donut just grinned with delight. "Oh man, this rules! RULES!"

In Caboose's mind, O'Malley ran down towards the pillars, laughing in delight at his losing his pursuers. But then, Tex and Church stepped out in front of him, pointing their weapons at him. "**Huh?**"

"Alright, O'Malley, this is it," Church yelled in triumph. "From now on, if anything makes my girlfriend cranky and psychotic, it's gonna be me."

"Aw, that's sweet," Tex replied.

"Shut up, bitch," Church hissed.

"Asshole," Tex muttered under her breath.

"**Never!**" O'Malley shouted. "**The darkness will swallow you whole!**"

"Forget it, O'Malley," Church snapped. "You're just one big headache and I got a whole pistol-full of Aspirin!"

"What?" Tex asked in confusion. "Oh that's ridiculous."

"I've got half a mind to kill you," Church continued, "and the other half agrees!"

"Oh, Church that's just stupid."

"You're about to split, personality!"

Tex slapped her hand to her visor. "Now you're just embarrassing yourself."

In the real world, Sarge and Simmons were kneeling on the floor, their hands to their ears as Lopez's song continued through their radios while Donut was tapping his foot in time to the music.

"That's it, I've had enough!" Sarge yelled out. "I can't take any more! Everybody, switch off your radios!"

"But Sarge…" Donut complained.

"That's an order, Private," Sarge yelled.

"Sarge, pleeeeeeeeeeease?"

"Don't try my patience, boy!"

"Aw man!" Donut whined.

On the roof of the Base, Tucker listened as the groans of agony were suddenly replaced by radio silence. "WAHOOHOOHOOOOO, it worked!" he cheered, running back to the others. "Hey, turn off your radio, quick!"

Lopez nodded and deactivated his Comm., Sheila turned off the music and Tucker switched off his headset, fervently hoping that he wasn't too late.

Meanwhile, Church had finally run out of cool one-liners so Tex stepped forward with one of her own. "Nice knowing you, O'Malley, but payback's a bitch and so am I."

She raised her gun, but Church held her back. "Wait, Tex, we don't know if Tucker's had enough time."

Tex shrugged him away. "There's only one way to find out…"

And with that, the two opened fire. O'Malley screamed in pain as the bullets riddled his body and then suddenly, he was gone.

"Huh, he just disappeared," Church said puzzled. "I expected like, an echoing laugh or… you know, the smell of brimstone, at least. I don't smell any kind of stone. Don't you think that's weird, Tex?" He looked round but Tex was also nowhere to be seen. "Tex? Tex, where'd you go? How do I get outta here? What happened to O'Malley?!"

At that moment, O'Malley was jumping out of Caboose's mind and frantically searching for a new host, all the while beeping a final curse in Morse Code: **-.-. - -.-. -.- -... .. - . ...** As the beeping went on, O'Malley discovered that nobody's radio was on. Realizing he'd been beaten, he started to slowly fade away… but then he suddenly heard a radio turning on and he quickly traced the signal to a nearby cave in the canyon wall…

…Where at that very moment, Doc was trying to get a call through. "Come in, Blue Command, do you read me? This is Medical Officer DuFresne. Is anyone there?"

The next thing he knew, the radio started buzzing and beeping then he felt a strange presence in his mind, and everything went black…

* * *

**Man, life does throw you a curveball, doesn't it? Also, look up on the Internet to know what O'Malley's Morse Code message is… although I'm sure you can guess anyway.**


	15. Aftermath, Before Biology

**Episode 34 and things are about to… well, you figure it out.**

* * *

Chapter 15: Aftermath, Before Biology

In a cave on one of Blood Gulch's cliff walls, Doc lay supine on the ground, unconscious. Then his radio turned on and Vic's voice called out to him, making him stir. "Hello, dude, come in doctor dude, are you there, hello? " Vic said urgently. "Paging Doctor Dude, to the radio, stat! I need twenty cc's of what the hell's going on there, dude!"

With a loud moan, Doc opened his eyes and slowly sat up, rubbing his head. "What happened?"

"Hey, you tell me, dude," Vic cried out. "One minute you were talking about a hole in the wall, the next thing I knew, you turn into Grumps McGurt, sounded like you needed a lozenge. You threatened to eat my children… not very cool, dude."

"Geez, did I really?" Doc gasped in alarm. "I'm sorry; something went wrong with my radio and I heard this weird beeping an-"

"Hey, no offense taken, dude," Vic reassured. "Don't got any kids anyway."

"What?"

"Old Vic's been through the snip and stitch, if you know what I mean."

"I don't wanna hear about that…"

"Winky-Blinky the one-eyed Sergeant's firing blanks, if you get me."

"Look-"

"Via Condios of the Vas Deferens."

"Yeah, alright, enough, I get you."

"I mean a vasectomy, dude."

Doc groaned as he got to his feet. "Look, I found something really weird here at Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha."

"Roger that," Vic confirmed. "What did you find?"

Doc turned to look at his discovery, which looked almost like a giant motorcycle but without any wheels. "It, it's like a, it's like a thing."

"It's like a thing," Vic repeated before replying sarcastically, "Okaaay, dude, thanks for the update. I'll be sure to alert the Chief of Staff, move to Defcon 1."

"Sorry, I'm just a little dazed. It's a big thing… it-it's purple, it's uh, it's a big purple thing."

"Use your words, dude."

"Look, I don't know," Doc replied impatiently. "It looks like some kinda alien artifact. Do the aliens have like a home base or something here?"

"I don't know, dude," Vic replied, clicking on his console. "Why don't I just consult my Extraterrestrial Travel Guide for ya? Oh look, they got a great series of alien bed and breakfasts there, lucky you."

Mistaking Vic's comment for more sarcasm, Doc let out a frustrated sigh. "Never mind, I'll just figure it out myself."

"Nothin' about big purple things though," Vic continued. "Maybe it's some kind of alien vehicle."

But Doc hung up on him. "Man, that guy is such a jerk," he muttered to himself. "The next time he talks to me like that, I'm gonna tell him to go straight to H-E-Double Hockey Sticks!" Then he sighed and looked at himself on the polished surface of the vehicle. "Oh, I really shouldn't talk like that, that's not very nice."

Just then, his face shifted to a smirk, his eyes flashed red and a sinister voice spoke out from his lips, "**If I ever meet him, I'm taking his eyes as souvenirs! Hahahahaaaa!**"

As he saw his reflection, Doc jumped back in alarm. "Whoa! That was unlike me. I must be stressed out. Time for yoga!" And he sat down for a quick meditation.

Meanwhile, at the Blue Base, Tucker, Sheila and Lopez returned from their mission and Church had finally gotten out of Caboose's mind. While Caboose slept it off in the sleeping quarters, Church and Tucker met in the cafeteria and swapped stories of their success over O'Malley.

"How's Sheila doing?" Church asked.

"I'm not gonna lie, it's not looking pretty," Tucker replied, taking out a bottle of beer and popping it open. "She may have twisted her differential, possibly some structural damage… could be a disc."

Church folded his arms. "You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, do you?"

"Uhhhh, no, not a clue," Tucker admitted sheepishly, lifting his helmet up to drink.

"What about Tex?" Church asked. When he'd gotten out of Caboose, he had looked around the Base for her but she had disappeared without a trace. "Any sign of her?"

"No, no Tex," Tucker said, shaking his head. "Is it unusual for her to disappear like that?"

Church just shrugged. "When we were dating, she'd sneak off all the time, but it was usually to sleep with other guys or to spend money that she'd taken out of my wallet. And since I don't have any money and… well, no offence to _you_ Tucker, but…"

Tucker just flung his empty bottle at Church, but it simply passed through him and shattered on the floor behind him. "You're a dick."

Meanwhile, at the medical ward of the Red Base, Sarge, Simmons and Donut watched worryingly as Grif slowly woke up, making loud moaning noises like a castrated sheep.

"Grif, don't try to move too much," Sarge comforted gruffly. "You've been through quite the ordeal."

Grif sat up on the gurney and rubbed his head. "Oh, man, where am I?"

"Hush now, shhhhhhshshshshshhh," Donut soothed as he rubbed his teammate's arm. "It was really touch-and-go there for a while, good buddy. But I did it." He sucked in a sob. "I pulled you through."

"How long was I out?" Grif muttered.

"Don't you worry," Sarge told him calmingly. "Nurse Donut here stayed by your side the whole time, stroking your hand and keeping you company."

"My right hand?" Grif groaned.

"The left," Donut replied.

Grif sighed as he looked at the hand he was rubbing his head with. "Note to self: cut off left hand."

"Um," Sarge coughed uncomfortably. "Technically speaking, it's not really _your_ left hand…"

"Say what?" Grif gasped.

"I had to replace certain body parts that were _severely_ damaged when the tank ran you over," Sarge explained. "And a few that were atrophied from a lifetime diet of hoohoos and bacon-flavored marshmallows."

Grif glanced down at his body worryingly. "Wait, which body parts?"

"Well, let's see," Sarge pondered aloud. "We had to _start_ at the shoulder then we moved on down the flank, made a left turn at the spare ribs…"

"Huh?" Grif looked confused.

"Yeah, we couldn't really find an anatomy book," Donut admitted as he pointed to a nearby butcher's poster. "But we _did_ find one of those pictures with the cow and the dotted lines all over it… I think it did the trick."

Sarge was still going over the cuts of meat when Grif interrupted, "Wait, where did you get the replacement parts?"

"Why, from our other subject, of course," Sarge replied.

"Subject, my cyborg ass," Simmons grunted angrily.

Grif's mouth fell open as he stared. "No… way!"

"Yeah, I'm real happy about this myself, numbnuts," Simmons scowled, folding his arms.

"Yep, those too," Sarge added.

Grif then let out a grin. "Did I get your lips? 'Cause maybe _then_ I'll finally figure out how to kiss Sarge's ass." Then a thought crossed his mind. "Wait a second, what _didn't_ I get?"

"We pretty much replaced all the internal organs and some of the more disgusting external ones," Sarge replied, "except for Simmons' spleen, which will be inflated and used for general recreation and esprit d'ecors."

Grif shook his head in disgust. "This doesn't seem physically possible."

"Nonsense," Sarge scoffed. "Modern technology makes anything possible. It was as easy as shake 'n' bake."

"And I helped," Donut added.

"Actually, Donut," Sarge argued. "I don't really know if snickering in the corner all night like a prepubescent monkey actually qualifies as help… but it sure was entertaining."

* * *

***hears Donut snicker like a prepubescent monkey* Oh shut up, will you? It's not helping my writing either.**


	16. What's Mine is Yours

**And now, it's a return to normality for Episode 35.**

* * *

Chapter 16: What's Mine Is Yours

At the Blue Base, Tucker and Church came into the sleeping quarters to check on Caboose. The quarters had three beds; a bunk-bed for two privates and a single bed for the CO. Tucker slept on the top bunk, Church used the single bed and Caboose was now sitting up in the bottom bunk.

"Man, Caboose, you were asleep for a long time," Tucker said as he sat on the side of the bed. "What were you dreaming about?"

"Oh, nothing," Caboose replied. "I do not like to dream. I try not to think while I'm sleeping."

"That's pretty much how you function when you're awake too," Tucker pointed out.

"I think consistency is important," Caboose said.

Church meanwhile was checking the blue soldier out. Two days had passed since he and Tex evicted O'Malley, but he wasn't so sure if the AI had truly gone from Caboose's mind. "Well, you _look_ okay," he muttered. "Then again, that's… just the armor. How do you feel?"

"Great," Caboose replied then he cocked his head to one side. "Who are you?"

"Oh come on, not this again!" Church yelled. "How can you seriously not remember me?"

Caboose stared at Church for a while then he smiled. "Oh of course! I remember you… You're Marvin!"

"I'm Church!" the leader shouted.

"I think I would remember a name that ridiculous," Caboose chuckled. "No, you are definitely Phil."

"You killed me with the tank."

"Dave."

"You insulted my girlfriend, you called her a cow?"

"Karen."

"Dude, you called her a slut," Tucker put in.

"Phineas?"

Church knelt down and stared Caboose right in the eye. "Your whole life is based around pleasing me."

"Er, Wally?" Caboose stuttered nervously, scrambling quickly out of bed. "Milo?"

"In fact," Church said with great finality. "I think you're kind of obsessed with being my best friend!"

Caboose turned to Tucker nervously. "Pst, the new guy is pretty full of himself."

"New guy, what the…?" Church finally lost his temper. "I'm not the new guy, _you're_ the new guy!"

"I don't know," Tucker said thoughtfully. "I kinda like it. I could get used to calling you Rookie."

"Oh yeah?" Church growled. "Could you get used to me beating you to death?"

"Pst, what's with the rookie?" Caboose hissed. "He seems mad."

Church just groaned and slumped onto the bed. "Oh, son of a bitch…"

Meanwhile at the Red Base, Grif stood on the roof, looking through the broken skylight as Donut tried to get up, jumping up and down like a kangaroo on a pogo stick.

"Donut, there's _no way_ you can jump that high," Grif mocked.

"Yes I can," Donut grunted, making another attempt to grab the edge of the window. "Yes I can."

At that moment, Simmons came up behind Grif and stared down at the hopping Donut. "What the hell is he doing?"

"Losing a bet," Grif chuckled.

Donut jumped again and just touched the edge of the skylight before landing again. "Aw, I almost got it that time. Are you sweating yet, sucker?"

"No, I _can't_ sweat," Grif scowled. "Simmons' stupid sweat glands don't even work right."

"What?" Simmons asked in disbelief. "They were working when I gave them to you."

"Please," Grif scoffed. "I'm not moist in any of the usual places. If you want 'em back so bad, take 'em."

Simmons sighed in anger. "I can't. Sarge said that sweat makes my cyborg parts rusty, so I'm cooled by Freon now."

"Ah, delicious Freon…" Grif muttered then he suddenly started to cough and splutter violently.

"Grif, are you alright?" Simmons cried out. "Are my lungs okay?" Then a thought struck his cyborg mind. "Hey, wait a minute… Are you smoking inside your helmet again?"

"What? No!" Grif retorted and as he did, a wisp of smoke drifted out of his helmet filter. "Oops."

"Dammit, I knew this would happen," Simmons snapped then he noticed the crumbs on Grif's armor. "And how many snack cakes have you had today?"

"None," Grif replied but Simmons glowered at him in disbelief. "Okay, five… or more… baker's dozen at most."

"Do you even _know_ how many there are in a baker's dozen?" Simmons growled.

"By my count… forty-eight," Grif guessed.

"Alright, that's it!" In a series of quick movements, Simmons ripped off Grif's helmet, snatched the cigarette out of his mouth, tossed it on the ground, stamped it out and slammed the helmet back down. "No more smoking, no more drinking and no more overeating, chubby! You're not gonna ruin my body parts the same way you ruined yours!"

"That's okay," Grif muttered, smarting from the friction burn in his head. "I can think of different ways to ruin them."

Below them, Donut was preparing one more attempt at a jump. He stepped back and started to run forward, but then he stepped on a large dark-red ball and was sent flying back into the medical trolley with a loud CRASH! "OWOWOWohohoooooh!"

Grif and Simmons spun round at the crash and the screams of pain and watched as Donut limped over, a scalpel in his arm, two empty syringes in his leg and a kidney bowl on his head. "Who left the spleen-ball where someone could trip on it?" the pink private whimpered, rubbing his bruised bottom. "I think I broke something. Simmons, I need your ovaries!"

Simmons sighed and bowed his head. "I really hate this army…"

Just then, Sarge ran up the ramp and called out, "Grif, Simmons 2.0, I just got off the horn to Command. I'm afraid we have a situation."

Simmons let out a groan. "Don't tell me they cancelled the holiday party again? Those cheap bastards. All I wanted was one night of carefree dancing, but nooo. I ask you, when is it gonna be Simmons' turn? WHEN?!"

Sarge and Grif glanced at each other then Sarge spoke. "Uh, actually, the problem is with Lopez."

"Don't tell me," Grif said. "The Consulate General from Spanishland is coming, and without Lopez, we don't have anyone to translate."

"There's no such thing as _Spanishland_, you retard," Simmons shouted.

"Yes there is," Grif argued. "They have those, uh, uh, waterslides… and all that salsa."

"No they don't."

"Well, I guess _you_ would know."

"WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN? For the last time, I'm _DUTCH-IRISH!_"

"Hey, don't let your fiery Latin temper get outta hand. I was just trying to make a point."

"Can it, Frankenstein," Sarge intervened. "We've got a pot on the front burner, and it's a-boiling over. I've just learned that Command implanted Lopez with secret instructions detailing the next phase of our operations. Do you have _any_ idea what this means?"

"I uh, uh," Grif stammered before turning to his teammate. "Simmons, you wanna take this one?"

"Were you not listening again?" Simmons yelled. "What the hell were you thinking about?"

"Certainly not _waterslides_, I can tell you that," Grif replied. "Or salsa."

Sarge looked at his privates as he explained grimly, "What it means is that if we don't get Lopez back before the Blues uncover our secret plans, we'll be up Pooper Creek without a paddle."

"Ewwww, that's _gross!_" Grif cried out in disgust.

"I'm talking about being lost in a forest of filth without a compass," Sarge continued. "Swimming in a river of sick with no floaties on, driving blind into a tunnel of-"

"Sir, I think we get the picture," Simmons interrupted quickly, "the very, _very_ disturbing picture."

"You sure?" Sarge asked. "I could go on."

"I'm sure you could, but no, really," Grif replied.

"Just one more?"

"Stop!"

"Come on, they're fun," Sarge insisted. "Simmons, you try one, I'll start you off: flying by the seat of your blank with a blank _in_ the blank. Huh?"

"Sorry, sir," Simmons said with a shrug. "I'm not good at word games."

Sarge scowled at him. "Ah, you're both a couple of lousy blanks."

* * *

**If you readers want to play along with Sarge's game, please keep your ideas to yourself.**


	17. Dummies are Forever or Blunderball

**Here's Episode 36 and things are getting on the move again.**

* * *

Chapter 17: Dummies are Forever or Blunderball

At the Blue Base, Tucker and Caboose watched from the main door as their two mechanizations had a huddled discussion.

"Man, Lopez and Sheila have been spending a lot of time together," Tucker said.

"I don't like it," Caboose fumed. "He is not good enough for my Sheila."

"They seem happy together," Tucker argued.

Caboose folded his arms angrily. "He is a bad influence, and he is taking advantage of her, because she is young and naïve… and delicate."

"Delicate?" Tucker cried out. "She weighs like two hundred tons, dude!"

"She is a precious flower," Caboose sighed wistfully.

Tucker shook his head in disbelief and ran over to Sheila and Lopez who turned round as he approached. "Hey guys, I have to ask you a favor," the teal Spartan told them. "This might sound strange, but I think Caboose is getting kinda jealous over your relationship."

"Sheeeeiiilaaaaaa!" Caboose called from the doorway. "Come baaaack to meeee! I made you a muffin!"

Tucker sighed and continued, "Anyway, could you just try to keep a lower profile or something? We don't want some weird, horribly disgusting love triangle."

Sheila and Lopez glanced at each other then the tank spoke. "Tucker, I've been speaking with Lopez and we feel that the machines have been treated unfairly in this canyon."

"What are you talking about?" Tucker asked confused.

"On a regular basis," Sheila replied, "we are either being blown up, possessed by spirits, or just left out to rust."

Lopez nodded in agreement and Tucker stared in worry. "Huh?"

"We have decided," Sheila continued, "that until conditions improve, we are _not_ going to help you in your battles."

Tucker gasped in alarm. "You're kidding, right?"

Sheila lowered her turret until it was pointed right at Tucker's face. "Do I look like I'm kidding?"

Tucker gulped loudly and ran off back to Base.

Meanwhile, at the Red Base, Sarge was issuing his plans to recover Lopez to his three Privates. "It's very simple. We'll use a flea-flicker maneuver with a run and gun two-by-two approach, tactical ops will be- Aw hell, who am I kidding? Grif, Donut, just go stand in the way of the bullets while me and Simmons 2.0 sneak around back to grab Lopez."

"Sounds like a plan," Donut nodded.

"No it doesn't," Grif retorted angrily. "How about this time we try something that doesn't involve me being shot at or run over?"

"Would electrocuted be okay?" Simmons suggested.

"NO!" Grif yelled.

"Well, I'm out of ideas," Simmons shrugged.

Grif turned to Sarge. "Look, instead of just running straight into enemy gunfire like we usually do, why don't we just try some reconnaissance this time?"

"You mean like spy stuff?" Donut asked eagerly. "That would be cool! I could wear a spy tuxedo…"

"No," Sarge shouted.

"With a hidden spy camera…"

"No," Simmons yelled.

"Inside a tiny spy bowtie…"

"No," Grif cried out.

"Or, I could wear a flower on my lapel…"

"Said no," Sarge shouted again.

"That sprays _water_ in people's faces! Oh man…"

"Shut up, Donut," Simmons snapped.

"No… secret spy liquid!" Donut laughed. "That would be awesome!"

"NO!" Sarge and Simmons bellowed.

"Maybe," Grif added before realizing his mistake. "Uh, I mean, noooo."

"Oh come on," Donut pleaded. "I could be double-O Donut!"

"You mean like Doonut?" Simmons joked.

Donut nodded. "With a license to thrill… or _be_ thrilled!"

"Alright," Sarge agreed with a nod. "Since you're both so into the idea, Grif, Donut, you're on recon. Find us a way to break into their Base and report back on the double!"

"Great," Grif sighed, setting off into the canyon. "More time alone with the idiot…"

Donut ran to catch up with him. "Grif, Grif, Grif, Grif, Grif, Grif! Let's pretend we're wearing _super-spy jetpacks_!"

Grif let out a long groaning sigh.

"No, no, no, no, like this…" Donut started making loud whooshing noises through his teeth.

Twenty minutes later, they were standing on a cliff overlooking the Blue Base and Donut was still making his annoying whooshing.

"Hey, can you not stop that for two seconds?" Grif snapped.

"Come on, Agent-" Donut stopped to clear his throat and spoke in a deeper voice. "Come on, Agent Grif, we've got to hurry if we want to save the princess from the evil goblin!"

"What Princess?" Grif asked in bafflement. "I thought you were pretending to be in a spy movie?"

Donut glared at him. "Look, my secret spy character gets to marry a beautiful princess in a castle, alright? Deal with it!"

Grif sighed. "Donut, can you just go find some higher ground or something?"

"But we're on higher ground now," Donut pointed out.

Grif let out a smirk. "Why don't you use your jetpack to go to the highest ground?"

"Good idea!" Donut cried out. "I bet the Blues won't think of that!"

"No," Grif replied, rolling his eyes. "If they were that stupid, we probably would have won by now."

Donut shrugged his shoulders, pretending to put on a jetpack. "Secret Agent Donut to the rescue!" he shouted and set off along the ledge, whooshing all the way.

Grif then pulled out his sniper and mulled over an alternative. "I could just shoot him," he muttered to himself. "No one would ever have to know… no one."

Down below at the Blue Base, Tucker found his ghostly leader on the roof. "Hey, Church," he called out. "We might have a problem."

"Is this a new problem?" Church asked. "Or did Caboose get his head stuck in the freezer again?"

"New one," Tucker replied. "Sheila and Lopez are now considering leaving to form their own robot army. They said no one would dare oppose them."

"What?" Church gasped. "Did you try to talk them out of it?"

"No way," Tucker cried out. "I wouldn't dare oppose them!"

"Oh man, well, we gotta find a way to separate them. Maybe it's time we get rid of Lopez."

"But without Lopez, you wouldn't have a body to use," Tucker reminded him. "Why don't you just possess him like you normally do?"

"I would," Church replied. "But it's getting harder to do it each time. I think he's learned to fight it somehow."

Meanwhile, in a nearby cave, Doc was having a fight of his own. During his yoga session, he had discovered that his sudden change in behavior was caused by a rogue AI that had entered his armor and was planning to destroy both factions in Blood Gulch and take over the universe and now he found himself in an argument with himself.

"You know," Doc told his reflection in the side of the alien vessel. "I really think we should try a _non_-violent approach to resolve this."

"**I agree,**" his red-eyed reflection snarled, "**Except replace the word 'non' with 'extremely', and after the word 'violent', include the phrase 'blood explosion extraordinaire'! Muahahahahahahaaaaa!**"

Outside, Donut was running along the cliff, making his jetpack noises when he suddenly heard the echoing laughter coming from a nearby cave. "Hey, what's going on in there?"

Cautiously, he crept up to the entrance as he heard a voice cry out in despair, "We can't do this, they're gonna find out. They'll find out about us, the machine, everything!"

Another sinister laugh came out as Donut slipped into the cave. "What the… those voices sound suspicious."

He crept up behind a rock and peeked round. He spotted a purple-colored Spartan staring at the side of a strange mauve motorcycle-like vehicle. Then an evil voice yelled out of nowhere, "**I will rip out their guts and feast on their entrails!**"

"But I'm a vegetarian," the Spartan cried out in horror.

"Oh, it's that guy whose name I forget," Donut whispered to himself as he looked around. "But where's the guy he's talking to?"

"Look, we can't just sabotage their equipment," Doc shouted at the vehicle. "That's rude."

"Sabotage?" Donut muttered. "That doesn't sound too good."

Then the evil voice spoke again. "**I will devour their hearts and crap out their souls!**"

"That sounds even worse!"

"**They will all taste oblivion, which**** tastes just like Red Bull, which is disgusting.**"

"Whoa."

"**All will _perish!_ Muahahahahahahaaaaaa!**"

"All?" Donut gasped in horror. "Wait! That includes me! Oh man, I gotta go tell the guys!"

As the pink private ran out of the cave and O'Malley's mocking laugh echoed through the darkness, Doc looked around in terrified concern. "Hello? Who's there? Please help me, I'm scared of myself!"

Once outside, Donut set off down the cliff. "Gotta… get back to Base," he panted as he raced across the gulch. "Back… to Base…" He then looked up and spotted a building just ahead. "Oh man, there it is. Guys!" he called out. "Hey, guys!"

He screeched to a halt when nobody came out. "Where is everybody?" he cried out. "I saw something really weird in the cave that-" He turned to point to the cliff but then he saw Sheila nearby. "Hey that's cool, when did we get a tank?"

Then a horrible thought crossed his mind. "Wait a minute," he realized. "This looks like the store. Except, Sarge told me there is no store." Suddenly he heard a loud click behind him and he whirled round. "Oh no!"

"Oh yeah," Tucker said as he and Caboose pointed their assault rifles at him.

Above them, Grif watched through the scope as Donut dropped his pistol and raised his hands over his head. "Oh crap," the orange Spartan sighed as he headed back to Base. "I knew I should have just shot him."

* * *

**Yeah, this never happened to James Bond.**


	18. Dealer Incentive

**With Episode 37, I'm now two episodes away from finishing this part.**

* * *

Chapter 18: Dealer Incentive

At the Blue Base, Tucker and Caboose escorted Donut into the brig, but since the cell's handprint scanner only worked for the CO and his second-in-command (both since deceased) and they didn't know how to reprogram it, they just tied Donut up to a chair and kept their guns trained on him.

Now Tucker began his interrogation. "So, they sent a female assassin to try and kill us," he said curtly, pacing slowly around Donut. "Clever, but it won't work. We're immune to your feminine wiles…" He stopped and looked round. "…Unless you wanna date one of us."

"Female?" Donut cried out. "I'm not a girl; I just have light red armor."

"Tease," Tucker muttered under his breath.

"How is that pink armor by the way?" Caboose asked curiously. "Looks _comfortable_…"

Donut nodded in reply. "At first, I really hated it, but it's kinda grown on me. My old one used to chafe my thighs something awful. But the crotch in this pink one is surprisingly roomy!"

"Silence, woman!" Tucker snapped.

Meanwhile, Grif had hurried back to the Red Base and between pants, told Sarge and Simmons everything that had happened.

"Good Buddha's noodle," Sarge cried out. "How could this have happened?"

"It's okay, sir," Simmons comforted loyally. "It was a strong plan. Grif's just a dumbass."

"Hey, I'm using _your_ cerebral cortex!" Grif argued.

"Settle down, ladies," Sarge ordered. "We need a new stratagem and we need it _fast!_"

Simmons nodded in agreement. "Donut's sure to crack under the pressure and reveal everything!"

"Everything like what, where we keep his tampons?" Grif joked.

"You're right about that, Simmons," Sarge replied worryingly. "The boy doesn't even see the entertainment value in being tortured! Oh, these kids today…"

Back at Blue Base, Tucker came out of the cells and found Church waiting. "How's it going, Tucker?" the leader asked. "We get any useful information outta the prisoner yet?"

Tucker shrugged and shook his head. "I figured he was here to steal back Lopez, but he won't give us anything… except a list of crock pot recipes. Would that be useful?"

"Do we have a crock pot?"

"No," Tucker replied. "Caboose made a trade with that annoying guy from Blue Command. He swapped it for a 'mystery box'." **(Air-quote)**

"What was in the mystery box?" Church asked curiously.

"A hundred and forty jars of mayonnaise," Tucker answered crossly.

Church sighed. "Well, that's a good trade."

"Yeah," Tucker said, failing to pick up his leader's sarcasm. "It doubles as a great sunscreen."

"How did you- never mind," Church groaned. "Listen, I think I came up with a plan for how we can use Lopez and our new prisoner to get an upper hand on the Reds…"

Tucker was silent for a few moments before Church added, "The plan does not involve mayonnaise."

"Dammit," Tucker cursed. "I knew there would be a catch."

As Church relayed his plan to Tucker, Caboose was having a go at interrogating Donut. "That was fun," the blue soldier giggled. "Okay, okay, your turn. Truth or dare?"

Donut thought for a moment. "Hmmm, truth!"

"Okay," Caboose said with a smile. "Tell me… all of the Reds' secret plans!"

"Oh, you tricked me," Donut shouted. "You Blue guys are _so smart_. Okay, now listen closely. Our biggest secret is-" But he got no further as Church jumped in and took him over, instead yelping, "Hurkabagagagagaaaaa!"

Then he spoke in his leader's voice. "Caboose, it's me, Church! I possessed this guy so we can-" Church stopped as he felt the crotch on Donut's armor. "Whoo! Hey, this pink armor's kinda comfortable. Roomy. What were you guys talking about?"

Caboose looked down dejectedly. "Ohhhhh, nothing."

Church gave a little smile. "You wanna braid each other's hair?"

Sometime later, the Blues made their way to the hill outside the Red Base. "Hello, inferior Red Squad!" Tucker called out.

Church, still as Donut and still tied up, stood next to Tucker. "We would like to talk to you about-"

"Sneak attack!" Caboose cheered, whipping out his assault rifle.

"Shut up, you idiot," Church snapped. "We're not here to fight, we're here to negotiate."

"Aha, sneak negotiation!" Caboose hissed.

Hearing the shouts, the Reds came out of the Base. "What the…?" Sarge cried out. "Donut! What is this?"

"I think he's talking to you," Tucker hissed to Church.

Church nodded and called out, "We, uh I mean _they_, would like to negotiate a surrender, to us. No to them, no wait nono that's right, to them, to us."

"Oh, smooth, dude," Tucker sighed.

"What's this business, the Blues are giving up?" Sarge stared suspiciously at them. "I smell a trap, or a rat… or a rat in a trap. Don't accept it, Simmons."

Simmons nodded and yelled out, "You can't surrender, Blues, we haven't attacked you! Now go home and wait for us to attack, and _then_ you can surrender."

"Wait," Grif cried out. "If we accept, that means we would have two surrenders, and they would have none. That means we win!"

"Win what?" Simmons asked.

"I don't know, the war or something, right?"

"You're an idiot," Simmons sighed, slapping the back of Grif's helmet.

Church continued to bargain. "In exchange for not killing us, they, them- we, they would like to, release the robot guy, and me…" He glanced a few times at Tucker before finishing, "The pink guy."

Tucker stared at him in confusion. "Are you becoming retarded?"

Simmons turned to Sarge in concern. "What should we do, sir?"

Sarge shook his head in doubt. "I'm torn, between my in_tense_ distrust of the Blue Team, and the need for the plans stored in my favorite robotic creation. No offense, Simmons."

"None taken, sir," Simmons reassured. "You removed the negative emotional center of my brain and implanted it in Grif."

Grif suddenly covered his helmeted face in his hands and sobbed, "No, I ca- _I just can't take this, we're all gonna die!_"

Church turned to his team. "I don't think they're going for it."

Just then, as if to clarify Church's statement, a shot rang out and Tucker just felt a sniper round graze his shoulder. "Oh mother_fucker_!"

"Okay, _now_ you're under attack," Simmons yelled, dropping the still smoking sniper. "Go ahead and surrender, bitch!"

"Nice thinking, Simmons," Sarge cheered.

"The humanity!" Grif whimpered.

"Alright, they surrender!" Church shouted back.

Tucker pulled out his pistol in anger. "Fuck that, I'm pissed, let's fight." He pointed his weapon at Simmons, but Church quickly shouldered into him, making him drop his gun.

Fortunately, Sarge didn't notice Tucker's attempted counterattack. "Now that you have been thoroughly humiliated by our superior military strategy, we demand the return of our robot, and our pink private!"

"Okay," Church called out, "but there's one catch!"

"What in shinola?" Sarge cried.

"Sarge, they want you to build two robots for their team," Church replied. "One for each prisoner that they're releasing."

"Hey that wasn't part of the deal!" Simmons yelled.

Grif, who'd recovered from his breakdown, scratched his head in confusion. "Why exactly are we negotiating with Donut?"

Tucker was equally puzzled. "Church, why do we need _two_ robots?"

Church shrugged uncomfortably. "You know… one for me and…" He then muttered under his breath, "One for Tex."

"Oh man!" Tucker shouted in disbelief. "Don't tell me you're doing this for Tex! You're still in love with her, aren't you?"

"Hey, get off my back, man!" Church snapped. "Most dead chicks aren't exactly lining up to haunt this dirthole. Besides," he added pointedly, "if I don't get her a body she's gonna steal mine anyway… the bitch."

"Eh, good point," Tucker admitted.

"Alright, you Blue scumsuckers," Sarge called out. "What robot models did you have in mind?"

"I guess make 'em just like Lopez!" Church replied. "Except, you know, just a shell, no intelligence!"

"These new robots sound much nicer," Caboose muttered.

"That's because they sound like you," Tucker teased.

"Oh, and _no Spanish!_" Church added. "_**And a bigger switch!**_"

"Okay, we got a deal," Sarge called out. "Meet us in the center of the canyon at 0600 and we'll make the exchange!"

"Deal!" Tucker agreed.

Church then turned to his team. "Okay, I gotta hurry back before Lopez and Sheila suspect anything. Make sure this pink guy doesn't run away when I leave, I mean it. I'll meet you guys back at the Base." And with that, Church stepped out of Donut and disappeared.

"Huwhuuuuugaygaayeeeee!" Donut yelped as his mind was released then he looked around in confusion. "What the…? Where am I?"

"We were just talking to your friends," Caboose explained, grabbing the pink private's shoulders. "But you're going to stay with us for a while."

"Are we gonna have a sleepover?" Donut asked eagerly. "Because that would be sweet."

Caboose let a smile cross his face. "You're a nice lady."

Meanwhile Church reappeared at the Blue Base and went around back. "Alright guys, I-" He stopped as he discovered that he was all alone. "Sheila? Lopez? What the…? Why do people keep leaving?"

At the same time, Tucker and Caboose began to escort Donut back to Base when Sarge called out to them, "Oh Blue Team… Before you go, maybe we should talk about _optional_ equipment on your new robots."

"What optional equipment?" Tucker asked.

"All you said you wanted was the body," Sarge replied. "We didn't talk about featuuuuuures!"

"Like what?"

"You know, undercoating, extended warranty; _features_, man, come on! Like, do you want them to be able to use both arms at once?"

"Of course!"

"Asynchronous arm movement issssssssss optional!"

"What?" Tucker cried out. "Oh man, I _told_ Church they would try to screw us! What about the feet?"

"Did you want feet?" Sarge asked cheekily.

"Yeah, we want feet!"

"Sorry, feet are optional."

"What's on the bottom of the legs?"

"Legs are optional."

"Oh man, what a ripoff."

"Options are optional."

"What _isn't_ optional?" Tucker yelled out impatiently.

"You look like a nice guy, don't worry, we'll work something out," Sarge replied, sounding more and more like a car salesman. "Have you thought about financing? How's yer credit? I can offer you a free set of high quality mud flaps… and a lube job… You won't be disappointed! I've been told my lube jobs are fantastic!"

* * *

**Offer of free lube jobs only available until 0600 tomorrow… Sorry, couldn't help myself.**


	19. K I T B F F

**Welcome to the explosive finale of Part 2!**

* * *

Chapter 19: K.I.T.B.F.F (Keep In Touch, Best Friends Forever)

After their business discussion over the robots' features, the Blues returned to their Base where Tucker sent Donut back to the jail, left Caboose to guard him and went to talk to Church, but he was shocked when Church told him what he'd found.

"So Sheila and Lopez were just gone when you got back here?" he asked incredulously.

"Yep, they even left a note," Church replied, pointing to a letter written in binary code and signed 'Lopez y Sheila' pinned to the wall. "It says they've gone off to start their own robot army. That's just great."

"Didn't they have a non-compete clause?" Tucker asked.

Church turned to look at the letter again. "It's also says they want us to meet them in the middle of the canyon at 0600 to discuss the terms of our defeat and/or surrender." He scratched his ghostly head in confusion. "0600… What does that mean?"

"Isn't that when we're supposed to be surrendering to the Reds?" Tucker recalled.

"It means six o'clock, right?" Church replied but then he frowned. "Si- or does it mean… six hun- o six hundred? Does six hundred mean minutes, six hundred minutes? Because that'd be…" He did a quick calculation. "That'd be ten o'clock. Is it six o'clock or ten o'clock?"

Tucker sighed and face palmed himself. "Man, we should get a day planner or something, 'cause this shit's getting ridiculous."

It took them all night to work out what the time was, but they eventually decided to just show up at six.

All night was also the time it took for Sarge to build the robots but as morning came, he now had two figures standing by the Base, one black and one cobalt blue.

Simmons came out just as Sarge was screwing in a new component in the blue robot. "How's it going, sir?"

"Great," Sarge replied, pointing to a large plan on the ground next to him. "With these new color-coded instructions, building robots has never been easier. Now all the _thousands_ of mistakes I've made in my previous efforts seem _laughably obvious!_" He chuckled before turning to the maroon Spartan. "Uh, except for you, Simmons. No mistakes there."

"Yeah I didn't think so," Simmons agreed, casually taking out his pistol. "You're great at this, even without any formal training or first party certification." As he spoke, he lowered his gun down and fired at his feet.

Sarge glanced down at this and frowned. "Son… did you just shoot yourself in the foot?"

"Yeah I do that now sometimes," Simmons admitted, putting his gun away. "And I'm not really sure why."

"I'm sure it's user error," Sarge shrugged.

Just then, Grif came running out the Base. "Hey guys, it's almost time," he called out as he approached. "Are the robots ready yet?"

"Juuuust putting on the finishing touches…" Sarge finished working on the component, closed the robot's armor and stepped back. "Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Francisco Montague Zanzibar." He nodded to the black robot before turning to the blue one. "And this one over here is Robot #2."

"Why didn't _this_ one get a fancy name?" Grif asked.

Sarge glowered at the second robot. "Let's just say _some_body has an over clocked sass-back chip, and rejected all the names I came up with."

In response, Robot #2 gave four loud tones followed by a honk and threw the bird at Sarge.

"But that's okay," Sarge continued. "I can even use it to my advantage. I made some special modifications on numero dos. Check it out." He turned back to the robots. "Robot #2, codewooord: Dirtbag!"

The blue robot gave two loud beeps then a loud "Eep!" then stepped forward and punched Grif in the face. "OWW!" the Spartan yelped as #2 stepped back. "Hey!"

Sarge chuckled at this. "Pretty nifty, huh?"

"That's _awesome_, sir!" Simmons laughed in delight. "Lemme try, lemme try. Codeword: dirtbag."

_Beep, boop_ "Eep!" And #2 punched Grif again.

"OWW!" Grif yelled again. "Okay fine, two can play at this game. Codeword: dirtbag!"

_Beep, boop_ "Eep!" And #2 punched Grif yet again, this time knocking him to the ground.

"Oh, son of a bitch," Grif scowled.

"But _that's_ not the only feature," Sarge said.

"What do you mean, sir?" Simmons asked curiously.

"Well…" Sarge looked slightly embarrassed. "I don't want to give anything away, but let's just say for instance that one of the robots contains a hidden microphone that will allow us to eavesdrop on the Blues whenever we want. And let's just suppose, shall we, that the other robot _contains a ten megaton bomb!_" He burst out laughing before he realized, "I guess I kinda gave it away."

"Yeah, ya kinda did," Grif replied as he got to his feet.

Meanwhile at the Blue Base, Tucker told Caboose that the time was getting close and he should untie Donut.

"I think this is what they call the calm before the storm," Donut told the Blue as he struggled to undo the knots.

"I call it nap time, which is right before food time," Caboose replied as he finally succeeded. "And then comes food-nap time! That is my favorite time of them all."

As Donut stood up and rubbed feeling back in his arms, he turned and smiled at the Blue. "Mister Caboose, I just want you to know that even though we are on different teams, and we may never see each other again, whatever happens out there today, I'll always remember the moments we shared together." He let out a sniff. "You are now, and forever will be… my friend!" And he flung his arms around Caboose before bursting into tears.

Caboose hugged him back. "Private Donut? That sounds like Private Biscuit."

"Yes, it does," Donut sobbed.

At 0600 exactly (six o'clock), the Reds and their robots were approaching the rendezvous in the middle of the canyon.

"You think they'll show up?" Grif asked.

"Well, my gut says no," Simmons replied. "But then again, my gut's made of an advanced polymer, it doesn't know what the hell it's talking about. Stupid gut…"

Just then, the ground began to shake and Sarge looked round to see Sheila and Lopez, now brown once more, approaching from the side. "Great Caesar's Toast, looks like they brought out the heavy artillery!"

Lopez stared at them in bafflement. "¿Por qué estan los Rojos aquí? No el vamos a conquistarlos hasta la Jueves próximo." (What are the Reds doing here? We aren't scheduled to conquer them until next Tuesday.)

On the other side, Tucker and Caboose led Donut up the hill and came to a stop. "That's far enough, Lieutenant McMuffin," Caboose warned the pink private.

Sarge spotted the Blues as they arrived. "Ah, they're lining up in flanking formation, those Blue jackals," he muttered. "Keep yer eyes peeled, fellas, this could get ugly."

On a cliff overlooking the canyon, Church watched through his ghostly sniper scope as the three armies arrived. Then his radio crackled and Tucker's voice called out, "Are you there, Church? Church, are you there, Church?"

"Hey man," Church replied. "I've been trying to get you on the radio for _ten minutes_. What's going on?"

"Sorry, man," Tucker apologized. "I'm still picking up the Reds' transmissions from when we broadcast that Lopez song. There's a lot of chatter."

"Well, are you at least getting any useful information?"

"Nah. It's just the same two guys bickering like an old married couple. I've only been listening for like five minutes and I can already tell they're really in love. Why can't they see it?"

Church sighed and looked through his scope. "Alright, get ready to launch Operation Circle of Confusion."

Tucker looked around puzzled. "Uh, Church, it kinda looks more like a triangle from down here."

"What?"

"I'm just saying it doesn't look much like a circle. It looks more like we're forming a triangle. It's just a side-note."

"Okay, fine, _Triangle_ of Confusion, Rhombus of Terror, Parabola of Mystery, WHO CARES!? Get the God damn show on the road!"

"Alright, alright, sorry," Tucker muttered. "Initiating primary commencement phase."

Donut listened to the conversation in bafflement. "What're they talking about?"

"Quiet, Commander Pop'n'Fresh," Caboose snapped. "I think they're talking about your golden flaky crust."

Tucker then turned to address the Reds and the robot army. "Hello, everyone, we're here to surrender! At this time, we would like to ask for one representative slash prisoner from each group to cross sides."

Grif looked over to the robot army. "Hey, I think I see Lopez over there!"

"¡Lopez la Pesado no te haga caso!" the brown robot yelled out. (Lopez the Heavy takes orders from your kind no more!)

"Tell him, big daddy!" Sheila concurred.

"Yep, it's him," Grif told the others.

Tucker then turned to Donut. "Okay, get going, pinky."

Donut nodded and set off across the gulch.

"Goodbye, Major Cinnamon Bun!" Caboose called out. "I will always remember your buttery goodness!" He then turned to Tucker. "Who was that guy?"

"Look, they're releasing Donut!" Simmons cried.

Sarge turned to his robots. "Go on, Francis Ex, front and center."

Francisco Montague Zanzibar gave a quick nod and set off towards Donut. Lopez let out a gasp in horror. "¡Un robotesa! Quieren echar nuestros contra nosotros!" (A robot! They wish to turn our own kind against us!)

Tucker heard Lopez's shouts and activated his radio. "Um, Church, do you think maybe in hindsight, it was a _bad_ idea for us to put Lopez around a bunch of robots?"

"Just stick to the plan, Tucker," Church ordered, running down the cliff towards the Reds. "Get the first robot over there, I'll draw Lopez's fire, come on!"

While Tucker was distracted, Lopez ran up between the exchanges and pointed his gun at Zanzibar. "¡Alto, traidor!" (Don't move, traitor!)

"What the…? It's a double cross!" Sarge yelled out. "Donut, Frankie Zane, get back here!"

"No!" Tucker shouted, aiming at Lopez. "Stay where you are! Do not go back!"

"Now the Blues are aiming at each other?" Simmons asked confused. "What the _hell_'s going on?"

"We've been outmaneuvered, men!" Sarge bellowed. "Take cover, I'm calling in an airstrike!"

As Sarge activated his radio, the feedback blared through Tucker's helmet, almost deafening him. "OW, MOTHER- what the hell is that noise?"

"Red Command, come in!" Sarge called out. "This is Blood Gulch Outpost #1! Do you read me?"

"Hello, hello, who's there?" Tucker frowned at the voice that responded. It sounded familiar somehow… "Come in; is that you, Private Tucker? Hello."

"Private who?" the Red CO asked confused. "No, Vic, this is _Sarge_, from Blood Gulch Outpost #1."

Tucker gasped in horror as Vic realized his mistake. "Oh, hey there, Sarge, long time no see. Sorry 'bout that, I uh… anyway what can we do here for you at Red Command today?"

Red _Command?_ Tucker thought in alarm as Sarge gave the sitrep. "I'm up to my haunches in hyenas here, Vic. I need an airstrike, and I need it on the pronto!"

"Can do, Sarge." At his console, Vic clicked on the _Airstrikes_ option on his screen. "I will send an airstrike to target the Blue forces now. 'Course I'll need you to fax in the airstrike requisition form."

"But I can't," Sarge protested. "I had to use spare parts from our fax machine to build Simmons 2.0!"

Behind him, Simmons suddenly gave a loud series of beeps followed by a dialing tone. "Whoa," he coughed. "Hmm, excuse me, man it must have been something I ate."

Grif looked behind him. "Hey Simmons, why is there paper coming out of your ass?"

"What the hell, Vic?" Tucker cut in at this point. "How do you know the Red Team? Why are you helping them against the Blues? What the fuck is going on here?"

At his console, Vic suddenly looked embarrassed. "Oh… Private Tucker, you're on here too, um… See, I uh… you guys are, uh…" He gulped loudly. "Uh, I gotta go; bad connection."

"Wait, Vic! Red Command! Come in, I need ya!" Sarge called out as Vic hung up.

Vic breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, that's not gonna be very good for business."

Back at Blood Gulch, Sarge let out a sigh of defeat. "Simmons, Grif… We're out of luck." He then pulled out his shotgun. "Get ready to open fire. Today is a good day to die!"

"Wait," Grif cried out. "I think today is actually a good day to _retreat._ Can't we push dying to a week from Friday?"

"Yeah," Simmons agreed. "Let's all take dying as an open action item and come back with suggestions _next_ meeting."

"No," Sarge growled, cocking his shotgun and turning towards the Blues. "It has to be today! For our ancestors!" And with a great rebel yell, he charged over the hill.

Tucker ran up his hill, but for a different reason. "Wait everyone, stop fighting!" he called out desperately. "It's all a lie! Red is Blue, Blue is Red! We're all the same!"

But Sarge's yells of conquest overlapped Tucker's shouts of reason, and there was total pandemonium!

From behind the Reds, Church appeared and tried to contact his teal teammate. "Tucker, your radio's giving too much feedback, shut it off!"

Caboose then charged towards Sarge, firing his pistol in the air. "This is fun!"

"Quiet, Sarge," Simmons yelled to his CO. "I can't hear what that guy's yelling!"

Sheila then rolled into the canyon, her turret waving every which way. "Lock and load."

"I LOVE BLOOD AND VIOLENCE!" Sarge screamed as he fired his shotgun into the air. "I'VE GOT A BONER FOR MURDER!"

"Stop fighting!" Tucker cried out. "Stop fighting!"

"What did you say, Blue?" Simmons called back.

Quickly, Church took over Robot #2's body and ran towards his team.

Amidst the chaos, nobody noticed Doc approaching in the purple vehicle towards them at top speed… until it was too late.

"I said there's no Red versus Blue! It's all a-WAAAAAAAGHHH!" A rocket had suddenly slammed into the back of Tucker and sent him flying. "Son of a bitch!"

"What the hell is that?" Sarge cried out, dropping his weapon in alarm.

"What the hell is that?" Church screamed in terror.

"¿Mira que cosa?" Lopez shouted.

Donut gasped in horror. "Oh my God, it's the _Cave Devil!_ _Run for your lives!_"

At once, another rocket shot out and hit the ground, making Donut, Church, Caboose, Sarge, Lopez and Zanzibar scatter in terror.

"Oops," Doc called out. "Sorry about that big explosion!"

"**Sorry it wasn't _bigger!_**" an evil voice added with a sinister laugh.

Church skidded to a halt and whirled round. "Wait a second, I'd know that laugh anywhere… That's O'Malley!"

As Doc fired at the Reds and made them run for it, he shouted out, "My bad!"

Church ran over to Zanzibar and grabbed his shoulder. "Come on, robot, you're with me!"

As Church led the robot back to his team, Lopez ran back to his tank sweetheart. "¡Sheila, alto los!" (Sheila, stop them!)

"My pleasure," Sheila replied, firing her cannon at the retreating robots.

Nearby, Sarge and Grif had run behind a boulder to avoid Doc/O'Malley's wrath.

"Grif, we're going to die," Sarge sighed in condemnation. "I'm glad we get these last few moments to make amends. My only hope is that I die before you, so that I don't live through the horror of losing a man on the battlefield."

"Yeeeah," Grif muttered awkwardly. "I hope you die first too, Sarge."

Meanwhile, Church and Zanzibar met up with Caboose and together they ran over to their wounded comrade.

"Tucker!" Church called out, kneeling beside his teal teammate. "Tucker, are you okay?"

With a groan, Tucker rolled over and looked at his leader. "Church… the purple guy… he's-"

"Yeah, I know," Church interrupted. "It's O'Malley. He must have got in the medic somehow."

"No," Tucker moaned, shaking his head stiffly. "He's an asshole."

"Church, how come Tucker gets to nap during battles and I don't?" Caboose asked.

Behind them, the possessed Doc swooped down to the robot army, leant over in his seat of the scooter and plucked Lopez out of the canyon before zooming away.

"Lopez, no!" Sheila cried out. As quickly as she could, she trundled towards the Blues. "Help, he took Lopez!"

"What?" Church leapt to his feet in alarm. "Where'd he go?"

Then O'Malley's evil laugh echoed from behind them. "**Here I am, you fool!**"

Church, Caboose, Zanzibar and the Reds all spun round… to see Doc/O'Malley standing on the roof of the Red Base, one hand on Lopez's shoulder, the other raised in victory.

"How'd he get up there so quick?" Church cried out.

"That guy's wicked fast!" Donut complimented.

"Thanks!" Doc replied. "I lettered in track in high school! It was the least directly competitive sport I could find!"

"Track sucks," Grif yelled.

"_**You**_** suck!**" O'Malley shouted back before he whipped out his stolen pistol and pointed it at Lopez. "**And now I make my escape with my metallic hostage, never to be seen again! Unless I _want_ to be seen, in which case, if I see you before you see me… **_**look out!**_" Grif and Simmons swapped terrified looks as O'Malley finished his rant. "**The Universe will be mine! Hahahahahahaaaaaa!**"

Sheila rolled back in horror. "Lopez! Nooooo!"

O'Malley then shoved his prisoner into the Reds' teleporter. "**Move it, brown bot. Into the abyss!**" And he jumped in afterwards, his laughter echoing around the canyon.

"Everyone hold your fire!" Church called out. "We're coming out. Truce."

"Time out," Caboose added as he followed Church and Zanzibar in joining the befuddled Reds.

"Would someone explain what just happened here?" Grif demanded.

"That evil guy in the scooter shot one of our guys and ran off with Lopez," Church explained.

"But we need Lopez for very specific reasons that we don't have to explain to you," Sarge cried out. "We have to get him back."

"Yeah, and we have to get the evil guy back," Church added. "He's the only one around here that can heal Tucker."

"So now we're forced to work together," Grif muttered. "How ironic."

"No, that's not ironic," Simmons argued. "Ironic would be if we had to work together to hurt each other."

"No," Donut differed. "Ironic would be instead of that guy kidnapping Lopez, Lopez kidnapped _him_."

"_I_ think," Sarge then suggested, "it would be ironic if our guns didn't shoot bullets, but instead squirted a healing salve that cured all wounds."

"I think it would be ironic," Caboose added, "if everyone was made of iron."

It took another two hours for the argument to get anywhere, but eventually the Blues (sans Tucker), the Reds and Zanzibar had gathered on the roof of the Red Base with Sheila waiting next to the badly damaged Warthog and Doc's abandoned scooter.

"Okay," Church said slowly. "We all agree that while the current situation is not totally ironic, that fact that we have to work together _is odd_ in an unexpected way that defies our normal circumstances. Is everyone happy with that?"

"Yes," Sarge said and Grif and Donut nodded in agreement.

Simmons then came up behind Church. "And I just finished reprogramming our teleporter to take us directly to Lopez and O'Malley's coordinates."

Sarge nodded at this. "We'll leave one member of each team so that no one can trick anyone and take over the canyon. Our man will be Donut."

"We will leave Corporal Croissandwich," Caboose added.

"Caboose…" Church warned.

Caboose sighed. "We will leave Sheila."

"Yeah, thanks guys," Donut muttered crossly. "Because, you know, if it is a trick, I'm sure I can hold her off."

Church then turned to the others. "Alright, we're gonna do this one at a time. You first, Sarge."

Sarge nodded and raised his shotgun. "Today seems like a good day to teleport! Geronimo!" And he ran into the teleporter.

Caboose followed with a cry of "Piscataway!"

Simmons started forward then paused. "Hmmm…"

"What's wrong?" Grif asked.

"I just had a really weird feeling that I'm never gonna see this place again," Simmons muttered.

"And that's a bad thing?" Grif asked.

"I didn't say weird _bad_, I just said weird." And with that, Simmons ran into the teleporter.

Church then stepped forward. "Alright, it's Grif, right? You and me will go through together. Ready?"

"You first," Grif replied.

With a nod, Church ran into the teleporter and Grif followed right behind.

Now Donut was all alone, save for Sheila and Zanzibar. "Huh," he muttered to himself. "I wonder if I should have told the guys that thing I heard O'Malley say about sabotage when I was in the cave… Ah well," he shrugged then he turned towards Sheila and coughed embarrassedly. "Uh, hi!"

"Stop staring at my treads, buddy," Sheila snapped.

"Geez, sorry," Donut apologized and turned towards the canyon wall, whistling to himself.

Behind him, a black, ghostly figure climbed onto the roof, spotted Zanzibar and took the robot over without hesitation. Then she turned round and spoke. "Alright, you sons of bitches, I'm back and I've got some-"

Tex stopped as she realized no one was there. "Hey, where'd everybody go?" She then spotted Donut standing nearby. "Do I know you?"

Donut turned round and Tex glowered at him. "Hey, you're the girl that killed me!"

As Sheila turned her turret towards him, Donut gulped in fright. "Uh oh…"

Meanwhile, Sarge emerged from the teleporter and pointed his shotgun out. "Prepare to surrender, dirtbag!"

"Okay, I surrender," Caboose called out, appearing behind him. "Now it's your turn."

"Not you, moron," Sarge yelled then he suddenly took his surroundings. They were standing waist-deep in a creek which ran through a small forest in the middle of a canyon smaller than Blood Gulch. "Wait a minute, where are we?"

At that moment, Simmons also came out the teleporter, but he found himself all alone in a massive series of corridors filled with glowing teleporters. "Guys? Oh guys…" He looked around in confusion. "Where is everybody?"

At the same time, Church and Grif leapt out of the teleporter and ran up a hill.

"Alright, now let's just find-" Church stopped as he realized the others weren't there. "Where is everybody?"

Grif meanwhile was taking in the view. The cliff they were standing on overlooked a great snowy field. On one side was a large clump of frosted trees and on the other, a great building squatted like a frog in the icy plains. "Whoa," the orange Spartan breathed with a shiver. "Where _are_ we? What is this place?"

Church looked around, took in the sights and immediately he recognized the place: he was back on the ice planet Sidewinder!

"Freeze!" a voice called out to them. "Drop your weapon!"

Church and Grif whirled around to see a tan Spartan-II pointing his assault rifle at them. "Uh oh," Church gulped.

The soldier glowered at the trespassers. "I said, freeze, _dirtbag!_"

Church suddenly gave a loud _beep, boop_ then an "Eep!" and he punched Grif right in the face.

"OW! Oh, _come on!_" Grif yelled before slipping into unconsciousness.

Before Church could ask what had just happened there, he felt a sharp crack on the side of his head and everything went black…

* * *

**Sometimes I like it when a season ends on a cliffhanger, don't you? Now my head is starting to hurt so I'm taking a break for now. But I hope to continue my novelization of Red vs. Blue: the Blood Gulch Chronicles soon. My thanks go to snakescreamer for the suggestions to my story and to you other readers for enjoying the series so far.**


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